Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the amount of commercial recycling waste that became solid recovered fuel in each of the last 10 years.

Information on the amount of commercial waste collected for recycling and that became refuse derived fuel or solid recovered fuel is not available. Data specifically on the collection of commercial waste for recycling are not gathered from industry. Other available data through waste data returns on waste treatment do not make it possible to reliably derive the original source of the data.

Data on the amount of commercial waste sent for recycling are not routinely quantified and published each year. The best available estimate of the recycling rate for non-household municipal waste by the commercial sector is around 35 per cent. This is based on work carried out by WRAP and published in the impact assessment related to ‘Consistent municipal recycling in England’.

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/environmental-quality/consultation-on-consistency-in-household-and-busin/supporting_documents/recycleconsistencyconsultia.pdf

The Environment Bill includes powers to introduce electronic tracking of waste to help improve the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of waste data, including data on commercial waste. In parallel the Government is working with industry on the development of waste tracking technology to ensure it meets users’ needs.