MORE than 37,000 tonnes of 'recyclables' collected from Hertfordshire - including from Letchworth households - were sent overseas for reprocessing last year, according to new data.

That means that for every six tonnes of material that is recycled or composted in the UK, one is sent overseas for reprocessing – mostly to Asia.

And amongst the materials sent overseas is more than a quarter of all recyclable plastics collected from Herts households.

The latest data has been collated for inclusion in the Herts Waste Partnership annual report – and was presented to a meeting of the partnership on Monday (November 1).

Overall it shows that 276,379 tonnes of material were collected from Herts homes for composting, recycling or reuse in 2020/21. And 85.73 per cent of that was recycled in the UK.

No garden and food waste, glass, wood, cans or scrap metal was sent overseas for reprocessing.

But 3,340 tonnes of other materials were shipped to Europe, 34,301 tonnes to Asia and 683 tonnes to Africa,

The bulk of that was the 31,380 tonnes of paper and card that was shipped to Asia – with a further 1,537 sent to Europe. That's equivalent to 60 per cent of all the paper and card collected in the county.

It also included a quarter of the 14,555 tonnes of mixed plastics collected in Hertfordshire – with 1,691 tonnes sent to Europe and 2,345 to Asia.

And it included 78.62 tonnes of used tyres that was sent to Asia – equivalent to 98.6 per cent of the tyres collected in the county.

In addition, 1,178 tonnes of textiles and footwear – that's 77 per cent of the textiles collected – were sent overseas, with 494.99 tonnes sent to Asia and 683.39 to Africa.

The data – or 'end destinations analysis' – will form part of the Herts Waste Partnerships annual report.

And Partnership chair Cllr Eric Buckmaster – who is executive member for the environment at the county council – says its inclusion means residents can have confidence that they know where their waste goes.

"The end destinations analysis included in the 2020/21 annual report, which is due to be released shortly, is for the second year running the HWP's way of improving visibility on want happens to the waste we collect for recycling and composting," said Cllr Buckmaster.

"Whilst this information has always been in the public domain, through medium's such as the HWP's annual reports, we want to make such information much more readily available and in a format that is easy to understand so residents and other stakeholders can have confidence in knowing where their waste goes."

According to other data collated for the report, last year (2020/21) the average household in the county generated more than a tonne in waste in 2020/21 – 60kg higher than the 969kg in 2019/20.

And overall Hertfordshire residents generated 34,200 tonnes of additional waste last year, compared to the year before – including an additional 11,000 tonnes of 'dry' recycling.

Just over a third of the recyclable materials collected, according to the data, were recycled within Hertfordshire – and a further 31.28 per cent elsewhere in Eastern and Southern England.

The data shows that a further 19.68 per cent was processed elsewhere in the UK – with 1.21 per cent of waste was exported to the EU and 12.4 per cent was exported to Asia.

The overall recycling rate in the county increased from 52.3 per cent in 2019/20 to 52.4 per cent in 2020/21.