Where Does My Waste Go?
A database of where your county council landfilled your non-recyclable household waste from 2004 to 2009. What is this?
Tonnage by year
| 2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
- 143,413 tonnes
- tonnage per head 0.17 2
- cost £4,589,216 1
|
- 179,723 tonnes
- tonnage per head 0.22 2
- cost £5,751,136 1
|
- 179,790 tonnes
- tonnage per head 0.22 2
- cost £5,753,280 1
|
- 153,859 tonnes
- tonnage per head 0.19 2
- cost £4,923,488 1
|
- 102,949 tonnes
- tonnage per head 0.12 2
- cost £3,294,368 1
|
Landfill sites
In which counties did Staffordshire council dump their waste?
Locations of the landfill sites.
Returns (18 records)
Non-hazardous returns by Staffordshire council.
- Landfilled 42,861 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2005
- Landfilled 51,506 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2005
- Landfilled 49,046 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2005
- Landfilled 28,758 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2006
- Landfilled 51,767 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2006
- Landfilled 51,432 tonnes in to
(null)
in 2006
- Landfilled 47,766 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2006
- Landfilled 49,887 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2007
- Landfilled 45,752 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2007
- Landfilled 46,370 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2007
- Landfilled 37,781 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2007
- Landfilled 40,669 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2008
- Landfilled 41,254 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2008
- Landfilled 44,542 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2008
- Landfilled 27,394 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2008
- Landfilled 30,146 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2009
- Landfilled 35,816 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2009
- Landfilled 36,987 tonnes in to
WS11 3EQ (Staffordshire)
in 2009
Why?
On my trip to work each day I can see a huge landfill site. A mound of rotting household waste with gulls flapping around for morsels of food and, presumably, dead AAA batteries. Like most people I can usually fill a five foot high black bin every couple of weeks with non-recyclable stuff from my house, which Mole Valley Council whisk off at 6am every other Friday morning, so I wondered if any of the things I put in my bin found their way to the landfill.
Thanks
This is possible thanks to wastedataflow.org, a free site detailing all the waste returns filed by every council in England. That is to say, every deposit, both tonnage and location, of everything I've stuck in to my bin. Also thanks to What Do They Know? for help with my Freedom of Information request. I also used Geonames and Google Maps during translation of the wastedataflow postcodes to English counties.
Notes and Terminology
Disclaimer
Data has been exported by hand from a slightly opaque web GUI and transformed from a
unwieldily CSV to a neat and tidy database so there may have been errors in translation. No independent verification of how i've presented the data has been sought.
Most authorities report their landfill statistics from April in accordance with
the start of the financial year, so my data is not necessarily comparable with other publicly quoted
statistics.
Many local authorities do not add postcodes to their landfill statisitics, which makes it hard to draw on a map. Eg, This is why Devon has 744,512 tonnes of non-geolocataed waste - I don't have time to correct it.
Non-hazardous
Non-hazardous waste is waste which does NOT feature on the list of hazardous waste in the European Waste Catalogue (EWC) 2002 (PDF).
Cost of Landfill
Cost is quoted in todays prices at £32 per tonne.
The Landfill Tax, introduced in 1996, is encouraging waste producers to divert material from landfill and is a factor in making recycling more affordable, as there is often a cost to initiate recycling.
In April 2007 the tax rate for active waste increased by £3 to £24 per tonne. The rate for inactive waste is £2 per tonne. In April 2008 the active waste tax will rise by £8 to £32 per tonne. The government has said that the Landfill Tax will increase by £8 per tonne each year from April 2008 until at least 2010/11. The rate for inactive waste will increase to £2.50 per tonne in April 2008. [source: letsrecycle.com].
Population
The landfill tonnage divided by the current approximate population size of the district.
Populations taken from Wikipedia's counties and London sub-region pages.