Written question asked by Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party) on Monday, 15 December 2025, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 18 December 2025 (named day). It was answered by Mary Creagh (Labour) on Thursday, 18 December 2025 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Incinerators and Recycling
- Question
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To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the change in the tonnage of (a) recycled and (b) incinerated waste between 2019 and 2024.
- Original answer
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The Government plans to legislate for a ban on the sale of peat and peat containing products when parliamentary time allows. This commitment is embedded within our Carbon Budget planning and, most recently, reflected in the latest iteration of the Environmental Improvement Plan.
We are working with the industry to develop peat-free fresh produce roadmaps, and we are continuing to support research and development, such as that being undertaken as part of the Royal Horticultural Society's Transition to Peat-Free Fellowship.
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The answer was corrected by Mary Creagh (Labour)
on Thursday, 18 December 2025 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
- Corrected answer
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The Government plans to legislate for a ban on the sale of peat and peat containing products when parliamentary time allows. This commitment is embedded within our Carbon Budget planning and, most recently, reflected in the latest iteration of the Environmental Improvement Plan.We are working with the industry to develop peat-free fresh produce roadmaps, and we are continuing to support research and development, such as that being undertaken as part of the Royal Horticultural Society's Transition to Peat-Free Fellowship.The most comprehensive waste treatment data Defra hold for the period from 2019 to 2024 cover the management of local authority collected waste in England for the financial years 2018/19 to 2023/24. The data are available in the Local authority collected waste management - annual results - GOV.UK publication.
Over this period, the total tonnage of waste collected by local authorities has fallen by 534,000 tonnes, from 25.6 million tonnes in 2018/19 to 25.1 million tonnes in 2023/24. Tonnages of waste recycled have fallen by 560,000 tonnes, while tonnages of waste sent for incineration with energy recovery have increased by 1.5 million tonnes and tonnages incinerated without energy recovery have fallen by 88,000 tonnes.
Data are available on the final treatment of all waste in the UK in the UK statistics on waste - GOV.UK publication, the most recent data are for 2020. Equivalent England-level data are also available for 2022 in the same publication. Both the UK and England data sets are updated biennially.
Secondary information
- Type
- Written question
- Reference
- 99704
- Session
- 2024-26
- Grouped for answer
- Yes
- Subjects
- Incinerators Recycling
- Contains statistics
- Yes
- Link
- View this Written question on www.parliament.uk
Librarians' tools
- Timestamp
- 2026-01-05 14:47:15 +0000
- URI
- http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/commons/2024-26/99704
- In Indexing
- http://indexing.parliament.uk/Content/Edit/1?uri=http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/commons/2024-26/99704
- In Solr
- https://search.parliament.uk/claw/solr/?id=http://data.parliament.uk/writtenparliamentaryquestion/commons/2024-26/99704