Information on waste and recycling in Bristol

Chart showing Bristol's recycling performance against national recycling rate 

Over the last 20 years our city’s recycling rate has increased from 13% (2004/05) to a recycling rate of 45% (2023/24). Bristol has been the top recycling English core city since 2014, but similar to other cities is seeing its recycling rate decline.

Chart showing English core city recycling rates

 

The largest year on year increases seen in the amount our city recycles has been after changes were made to the way we collect household waste and recycling. When side waste collections stopped (non-recyclable waste that is put next to bins or containers instead of inside) in 2005/06, the amount of waste put in black bins dropped by approximately 31,000 tonnes and the recycling rate jumped up by 13%. This trend continued with the introduction of fortnightly collections, bringing the city’s recycling rate up to nearly 37% in the space of a year.

Chart showing Bristol's recycling rate vs Non-recyclable waste disposal

 

Our last service change was in 2018 (introduction of cardboard sacks). It provided an uplift in performance but since then we’ve started to plateau. We need to increase our rate further so we can help to contribute to the national target of achieving 65% recycling by 2035.

The council faces a number of challenges to maintain the city’s waste management systems in the face of growing demand, rising costs and changing government regulation. 

The impact of high inflation and global events has affected the costs of energy, raw materials and fuel costs. This coupled with rising wages and the constant need to repair and replace machinery means the cost of providing services in future is expected to rise every year. Bristol is also a growing city with tens of thousands of new homes planned in the coming decades meaning more households needing regular collection services.

We must also prepare for new government regulation which will require the council to:

• Recycle more of our waste. Businesses (producers) will also be required to make more of their packaging recyclable through Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging.
• Expand the range of materials people can recycle e.g. soft plastics and food waste for flats and businesses.
• Provide different ways of recycling e.g. Deposit Return Scheme for bottles and cans that will allow people to recycle more away from home.
• Help businesses to meet their requirements to recycle (businesses will need to recycle paper, card, bottles, cans, plastics and food waste).
• Reduce our carbon emissions (and costs) by reducing our waste.
• Recycle more materials that contain fossil-based carbon including plastics, textiles, waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) and hygiene products. From 2028 Energy from Waste will be included in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (a carbon tax), which means that waste containing fossil-based carbon will cost significantly more to dispose of.

We need to recycle more, but materials that could be recycled are still being thrown away in our black bins which should be for non-recyclable waste only. 

From analysis we know that:

• A quarter of the black non-recyclable bin is food waste – that could be recycled in the food waste bin.
• 13% of the black non-recyclable bin is paper and card, glass, plastic and cans, textiles and small electricals – that could all be recycled.

At least half of what we’re currently throwing away in our black bins could be recycled using our household recycling service. This figure could be even higher (59%) if we recycle garden waste either through home composting, subscribing to the garden waste collection service or by taking it to one of the three local Household Reuse and Recycling Centres.

There’s also a significant opportunity to throw away less, by reducing our food waste, donating items for reuse to charity shops or at one of the Reuse Shops at the Household Reuse and Recycling Centres, and changing our consumption habits – buying less, and buying second-hand items. 

Recycling more offers a number of benefits for our city:

Climate and environmental sustainability – recycling materials rather than producing new ones is a key benefit of recycling systems. It reduces the energy use required to produce new materials and contributes to reducing the use of fossil fuels and natural resources such as trees. Diverting waste away from landfill, particularly perishable material such as food waste, reduces the amount of greenhouse gases released when this material decomposes. Our city has a target of being carbon neutral by 2030. This means finding a balance between the amount of carbon emitted by the city and the volume of carbon removed from the atmosphere by various processes. Recycling more plays a vital role in achieving this goal.

Improved local food security, energy security and resilience – cities that recycle more and waste less experience a number of benefits that improve their food and energy security and resilience. Increasing food waste recycling for example means more of this material can be used to produce compost for local food growing and clean energy through biogas and heat generation. Where recycling rates are high this is often accompanied by a high number of social initiatives, some of which already exist in Bristol, such as community composting, repair shops, cafés that cook with surplus edible food, and ‘sharing economy’ initiatives such as lending libraries for tools and equipment. These types of initiatives support communities and provide vital services that help reduce food poverty, develop local skills and support the evolution of a sustainable, green economy.

Lower costs to the city for waste management – we spend over £44 million per year on our waste, recycling and street cleansing services. The largest element of this is waste treatment – around £14 million per year. In recent years with high inflation and the new carbon tax (Emissions Trading Scheme) the council’s treatment costs are forecast to escalate in future to unsustainable levels without any action to reduce waste and the cost base. We’ll also need to spend money to improve our existing services and infrastructure, including our buildings and vehicles just to keep on top of current waste levels. Increasing the amount we recycle and reducing the amount of black bin waste lowers the city’s waste management costs in two main ways. Less black bin waste means collecting this waste can be done less frequently, reducing the amount needed to be spent on these collections, some of which can be diverted to improving recycling services. Recycled material also generates an income for the city which can be used to offset the cost of collecting and processing this material.

Chart showing forecasted waste treatment costs

 

Since the last major intervention of introducing sacks specifically to encourage a rise in cardboard recycling in 2018, our main approach to growing recycling rates has been in improving the levels of understanding of our local recycling systems. Education campaigns are an important part of our local waste management system to help people better understand what can be recycled, where and how. These campaigns are also aimed at encouraging people to do more to reduce their black bin waste and recycle a wider range of materials on a regular basis. Some examples of recent campaigns include:

• Waste Nothing Schools Challenge
  • A take-home challenge for school pupils and their families to reduce waste and recycle more. The challenge included five missions for the classroom to complete, and pupils are rewarded with stickers for each mission. 
• Waste Nothing Challenge
  • A challenge that provides tips and knowledge to help people reduce their waste. The challenge focuses on simple activities, such as how to store food to make it last longer. 
• Slim My Waste, Feed My Face
  • A campaign to encourage residents to use their brown food bins instead of black bins for food waste. The campaign included leaflets and stickers to help residents remember the importance of recycling food waste. 
• Stop Bin-digestion
  • A public campaign that provided tips to reduce food waste, including buying food, safe storage, cooking, and waste disposal. 
• #InTheLoop
  • A trail of recycling bins that leads from Castle Park, through the centre of the city, and along the waterfront. 

Whilst our analysis indicates that education campaigns do produce localised improvements in recycling rates, the effects of these efforts are often short-lived and appear to maintain current city-wide recycling rate levels rather than bringing about wholesale improvement. In addition, these initiatives are expensive to produce with the cost of delivering the required number of campaigns needed to maintain current recycling levels estimated to be between £500,000 and £1 million a year.

Our experience from the past 20 years is that education campaigns, when coupled with service change, produce much wider positive impacts on behaviour change, that in turn delivers significant growth in how much our city recycles, and reductions in how much black bin waste is produced.

Other initiatives currently being trialled include:

• Trialling the recycling of nappies, working with Nappicycle, Green Bottoms, and a small group of residents. Up to October 2024, 60,000 nappies have been collected from Bristol trial households and recycled. Our aim is to expand this trial to include a recycling option for Adult Hygiene Products (AHPs) and recycle one million nappies and AHPs per year.

To meet the immediate challenges we face in maintaining our local waste services, increasing recycling rates and preparing for the changes being introduced by new government regulations, the council is putting forward possible solutions.

These potential solutions include a mix of introducing changes to how the city’s waste and recycling services are delivered and investment options to improve these services in future.

Options for changing services:

Two options have been presented for potential changes to local waste management services.

These options have been proposed after careful study of the experience of other areas of the UK who have already changed their collection services, including recent changes introduced in our neighbouring local authorities. Examples of other parts of the UK that have changed the frequency of their waste collections and their reported outcomes:

Greater Manchester Boroughs 

Salford City Council introduced three-weekly general waste collections in 2015.

Outcome: Recycling rates increased by approximately 7% within a year, and the city saved around £1 million annually in waste disposal costs.

Conwy Council 

Moved to a four-weekly general waste collection in 2018 and alongside weekly food and dry recycling collections.  

Outcome: There was a significant increase in recycling rates (11.5%) and decrease in residual waste (12%).  The council now has the joint fourth highest recycling rate at 70%.

Rhondda Cynon Taf

This local authority implemented three-weekly collections for general waste in 2023 alongside robust recycling programmes.

Outcome: Recycling rates climbed to over 64%, helping Wales maintain its status as one of the top recyclers in Europe.

Bristol’s Proposed Collection Options 

Option One

Service - Households: 

1. Food waste collection – collected weekly
2. Recycling collections – collected weekly
3. Increased recycling capacity
4. Non-recyclable waste – collected every four weeks
5. Communication and education campaign to support scheme roll out

• Costs / Benefits: 
  1. Approximately 10% boost in recycling rate, with around a 60% reduction in carbon emissions from collecting and treating waste and recycling
  2. Approximately £2.3m reduction in costs and reduces the risk of future increases in cost with a nearly £1.5m of avoided future carbon tax costs
  3. Will contribute towards safeguarding other core services

Option two

• Service - Households:
  1. Food waste collection – collected weekly
  2. Recycling collections – collected weekly
  3. Increased recycling capacity
  4. Non-recyclable waste – collected every three weeks
  5. Communication and education campaign to support scheme roll out
• Costs / Benefits:
  1. Approximately 6% boost in recycling rate, with around 40% reduction in carbon emissions from collecting and treating waste and recycling
  2. Approximately £1.3m reduction in costs and reduces the risk of future increases in cost with nearly £1m of avoided future carbon tax costs
  3. Will contribute towards safeguarding other core services

Flats

These potential options for service change would not apply to flats with communal collections/mini-recycling centres. Bristol has different types of flats ranging from high rise to flats above shops. Each flat type has different waste and recycling needs. We are facing similar challenges on our flats service and would like to support our residents in recycling more.

We’ve considered a number of options suited to different flat types, noting that each flat will need to be assessed before final decisions are made.  We believe there is a need to simplify the way residents living in flats recycle, due to the lack of space and distances that the recycling may need to carried.  

Improving waste management services:

In 2027 we will need to replace our recycling vehicles. This gives us an opportunity to rethink how we might collect your recycling.   Currently, collecting materials separately helps to ensure that the recycling Bristol produces is of a good quality which means that it can mainly be reprocessed within the UK or Europe.   Good quality recycling also generates an income which helps to subsidise the waste and recycling service.  Given the operational issues experienced this year, the council is considering alternative collection methods to simplify and improve the reliability of the service. 

However, changing the way we will collect our recycling may have other impacts.

Early options we are considering include: 

• Larger sack for card and paper, and a large sack for plastic and cans instead of a box
  • This could reduce our reliance on boxes (which can break) and means that residents will have more capacity to recycle the two most bulky recycling streams.  
  • Sacks should also minimise windblown litter, reduce the time crew take to sort materials and empty containers and continue to provide good quality recycling with low levels of contamination (materials that shouldn’t be included).  
  • Using a sack would also mean that existing vehicles can be reconfigured to improve cardboard capacity – something we’re collecting more of. 

• One wheeled bin for each recycling stream 
  1. Potential options for card and paper, plastic and cans and glass. The three bins would be collected on an alternate weekly basis (one of the three bins each week).
  2. This will provide additional capacity for each recycling stream, maintaining quality and recycling income, whilst minimising windblown litter.  
  3. Service delivery will be cheaper, but it may be more challenging for residents to remember which bin is collected which week. 
  4. Storage of up to five wheeled bins, plus a food waste container could be prohibitive for large parts of the city.  

• One larger capacity wheeled bin for all paper, card, plastic and cans - all materials mixed together.        
  • Collected less frequently than weekly.
  • This will provide a simple recycling option through a wheeled bin and improve reliability of collection, whilst minimising windblown litter.         
  • Co-mingling of all recycling will be more expensive as there are few sorting facilities regionally.  
  • The quality of the recycling will be reduced meaning that it may cost to recycle it.