A council has been urged to conduct a “complete root and branch review” of its waste disposal methods. 

Household recycling rates have decreased in County Durham, causing Green Party councillor Jonathan Elmer to call for change. 

Durham County Council said the recycling rates are worse than last year and the national average. “We await further detail on the national standardisation of recycling collections, including the introduction of food waste collections,” a report added. 

Responding to the latest figures at a scrutiny merton on the council’s 2024/25 performance, cllr Elmer said: “I think it's time for a complete root and branch review of our waste management strategy.”

Cllr Elmer urged the council to avoid relying on incinerators to dispose of its waste, saying they are harmful to the environment. Incinerators generate electricity for the National Grid but are pumping out levels of harmful greenhouse gases at a rising rate.

He said: “We are putting all our eggs into the incinerator basket,” he said. “One of the problems with these very large facilities is it could result in a reduction of recycling rates because there is a place for everything to be burnt."

However, new figures show Durham County Council is one of only 20 local authorities out of 123 to have decreased the proportion of waste they incinerate since 2014-15. 

Back in 2015 County Durham recycled 44.1 per cent of its waste, landfilled 2.4 per cent, and incinerated 53.4 per cent. 

By 2023 incineration had decreased by 3.4 percentage points to 50 per cent. Recycling decreased over the same period by 5 percentage points to 39.1 per cent. In 2023 9.6 per cent of waste was landfilled.

Cllr Elmer added: “I’m worried that we’re locked into a direction that doesn’t seem to appear to be favoured at the moment. It potentially impacts not only our future recycling rates but also our future carbon emissions.”

Durham County Council said it has launched several waste disposal schemes to encourage the public to deal with different types of waste. 

Councillor Mark Wilkes, cabinet member for neighbourhoods and climate change, said: “As part of our ambitions to tackle climate change and reduce the county’s carbon emissions, we are committed to introducing new and innovative ways to make it easier for residents to recycle items that would generally be disposed of as waste.

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“In 2022/23 we were the highest performing council in the North East for household waste being sent for recycling, and contamination of household recycling also continues to come down. This has been driven by our ‘What Goes Where’ campaign and the introduction of new schemes such as small electrical recycling collection points, vape recycling points, recycling of medical equipment and, most recently, a pilot scheme to recycle coffee pods. Introducing food waste collections by 2026 will also create further opportunities for people to recycle.” 

In October, the council unveiled major changes to food and recycling bin collections in County Durham. Households will receive new containers to store food waste and follow new rules for recycling glass by 2026. 

Cllr Wilkes added: “Our waste strategy is and always will be based on the nationally agreed waste hierarchy, with re-use and repair being our top priority. Any leftover waste, which we want as little of as possible, is sent to energy from waste facilities which provide electricity to the national grid, rather than sending it to landfill. We offer the widest possible range of recycling facilities and we encourage the public to make full use of them as the more the people recycle, the less we need to send to energy from waste facilities.”