Recycling & Waste Management

Waste and what we do with our waste is one of the biggest challenges facing society today. Each year the quantity of waste that we produce is increasing along with the toxicity of the waste, as we introduce more and more man made products and chemical compounds, which take longer to degrade and represent a greater pollution threat to the environment. As such everyone of us have a responsibility to do what we can to reduce the amount of waste that we produce and the impact that our waste will have on our environment.

Each year Magherafelt District Council generates approximately 22,000 tonnes of municipal waste (that's waste collected by the Council). 18,000 tonnes of this waste is household waste generated from our own homes and gardens while the other 4000 comes from business commercial and construction industries. In the past over 90% of this waste would have been consigned to landfill at great expense to the local environment, the Council and the ratepayers.

However, in the past few years Magherafelt District Council have shown themselves to be at the very forefront of waste management in Northern Ireland by introducing a raft of new recycling services and initiatives aimed at reducing the waste that we send to landfill and protecting our precious natural resources.

With challenging new European and National legislation and recycling target looming the Council has, introduced blue bins for the kerbside collection of mixed dry recyclables, brown bins for the kerbside collection of kitchen and garden organics for composting, developed a full range of "bring-to" recycling services at their civic amenity sites and recycling centres and commissioned their own in-vessel composter - the first in Northern Ireland.

As a result of these new initiatives the Council's recycling rate has rocketed from 5-10% just a few years ago to 35% plus. This is well in excess of the current recycling targets and with a little more work we are confident of meeting the more demanding targets set out for 2010, 2013 and 2020.

For more information on any of the Council waste management initiatives contact Mr John Murtagh the Council's Environmental Projects Officer