Beyond the Kerb – what happens to your recycling after it has been collected The latest edition of a pioneering annual report shows how every tonne of recycling in Somerset has contributed to cutting our carbon footprint. In 2008, Somerset Waste Partnership was the first authority in the UK to produce an annual full report, Beyond the Kerb – Recycling to Resources, showing what happens to your recycling after you’ve left it by the kerbside or taken it to the recycling site. Many others have followed that lead. SWP has turned this information into an infographic – see above – helping to get the message out to more people that sorting your recycling means it is high quality so we can keep it in the UK and maximise our carbon savings. Somerset is independently ranked among the top 10 areas in England for carbon saving, equivalent to taking more than 25,000 cars off the road for a year. In 2019-2020 Somerset reused and recycled 135,420 tonnes of waste. Thanks to residents and recycling crews separating recycling, over half stays in Somerset and over 90% stays in the UK. That includes everything from cans to glass bottles and garden waste, with the amounts, locations and companies, and the carbon saved by recycling, listed and published here each year. This level of openness and transparency is important to SWP because to tackle climate change, it is important not just how much we recycle, but how we recycle it. Due to the lack of UK reprocessing capacity or demand, SWP’s collection and recycling site contractors send a proportion of some materials overseas, such as clothes or cardboard, with every tonne carefully tracked to the location and company. A Somerset Waste Partnership spokesman said: “We’re proud of what we achieved but we want to do even better in the future. “As new recycling capacity comes on line in the UK – including the country’s largest plastics plant in Avonmouth, powered by burning Somerset’s rubbish – even more can be achieved. “If there is enough UK capacity and demand, then from spring 2020 we won’t export anything we collect at the kerbside.” View or download the most recent edition: SWP Beyond the Kerb Recycling to Resources 2019-20 Download the 2019-2020 infographic: SWP Beyond the Kerb – Recycling to Resources 2019-2020 View or download earlier editions: SWP-Beyond-the-Kerb-Recycling-to-Resources-2018-2019 SWP-Recycling-End-Use-Register-2017-2018 SWP-Recycling-End-Use Register-2016-2017 SWP-Recycling-End-Use Register-2015-2016 SWP-Recycling-End-Use Register-2014-2015 SWP-Recycling-End-Use Register-2013-2014 SWP-Recycling-End-Use Register-2012-2013