Facts & Figures

Waste constitutes one of the main areas of expenditure for local councils in Northern Ireland. The amount of municipal waste generated in Northern Ireland has stabilised in recent years and significant progress has been made in moving away from landfill to more sustainable waste management solutions such as recycling and composting.

Northern Ireland Government figures show that:

Municipal waste generation peaked in 2006/7 at 1.064m tonnes, falling to 1.061m tonnes in 2007/8 and 1.017m tonnes in 2008/9;
Waste recycled or composted has been steadily increasing with 303,000 tonnes of household waste recycled or composted in 2008/9 compared with 191,000 tonnes in 2004/05;
The amount of waste collected from each household in 2007/8 was 1.29 tonnes. This represents over a 5% reduction compared with 2004/5 (1.36 tonnes); and
Of the total municipal waste generated in Northern Ireland in 2008/9, 68% or 695,000 tonnes were sent to landfill. 475,000 tonnes of this were Biodegradable Municipal Waste (BMW).