What happens to my waste?
Kent’s residents produce around 700,000 tonnes of waste a year and in recent years less than two per cent has gone to landfill. Currently, we are achieving a rate of just 0.25 per cent.
In 2020-21, for example, we dealt with 678,987 tonnes of of recycling and rubbish, just 2.1% was sent to landfill. The rest was used to generate electricity (53.9%), recycled or turned into compost (44%).
Did you know the waste to energy plant at Allington can generate up to 263 million kilowatts of green electricity every year? That’s enough to meet the needs of around 90,000 homes.
Three quarters of this waste (75.7%) was dealt with inside Kent’s borders, 15.7% went to other parts of the UK and 8.6% was sent abroad – some of it clothing that will be re-used by charities overseas. Keeping things local supports jobs in Kent, reduces transport costs and has less impact on the environment.
You can view the most up to date recycling and waste data for Kent here.
We can all do our bit to reduce the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of by minimising the amount of stuff that comes into our homes. After that, we should make sure that as much as possible is recycled or reused by, for example, making our own compost.
If you want to encourage children to take an interest in the Three Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – a very good introductory activity booklet, Fox’s Waste Adventure, can be found here.
You can also see how much you really know about recycling here.
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