Household recycling, municipal waste and fly-tipping

Annual waste statistics are published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). These figures show the volume of municipal waste collected and managed by local authorities, including waste from kerbside collections, household waste recycling centres, other waste collection in public spaces, such as street bins, and non-household municipal waste.

In Lancashire, responsibilities for waste management are separated into collection and disposal authorities. The 12 local authority districts oversee the collection of waste, including kerbside and bulky item collection. Lancashire County Council oversees the disposal of the collected waste and operates household waste recycling centres across the county. The unitary authorities, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool, oversee both waste collection and disposal.

Defra also publish annual fly-tipping figures, showing the number of incidents of illegal dumping of waste on land or in water.

The latest figures for local authority collected waste are for 2024/25 and are provisional. The latest fly-tipping figures are for 2024/25.

Local authority collected waste

There were 605,752 tonnes of local authority collected waste in Lancashire-12, equal to 468 kg per person. This was above England (426 kg).

Compared to the previous year, total local authority collected waste increased by 1.2% in Lancashire-12 (England = 0.4%).

Recycling, composting and reuse accounted for the disposal of 42.5% of Lancashire-12's local authority collected waste (England = 41.2%). Landfill accounted for 33.7% of waste, considerably higher than the England proportion (5.5%), while incineration with energy recovery accounted for 17.0% of waste, less than half of the England proportion (49.8%).

Household waste

The total household waste in Lancashire-12 was 547,476 tonnes, equal to 423 kg per person. This was above England (389 kg).

Compared to the previous year, total household waste increased by 0.8% in Lancashire-12 (England = 0.5%).

Waste sent for recycling, reuse or composting accounted for the disposal of 41.8% of Lancashire-12's household waste (England = 42.0%). At the district level, the household waste recycling rate ranged from 43.5% in West Lancashire to 26.7% in Pendle.

Fly-tipping

Excluding Fylde (due to data unavailability), in the Lancashire-12 area, there were 27,833 reported incidents of fly-tipping in 2024/25. This was a 7.6% increase compared to the previous year (England = 9.1%).

The largest number of reported fly-tipping incidents were in Pendle (6,186), followed by Preston (5,642). South Ribble (449) had the fewest.

Source: Local authority collected waste management (annual results) and fly-tipping statistics for England from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), via LG Inform.

Further information

Annual statistics on waste are published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) using data from local authorities about the types and quantities of waste they collect and dispose of submitted quarterly on the WasteDataFlow website.

Defra produces three main measures of waste. These are:

• Local authority collected municipal waste -includes household waste plus non-household waste and any commercial waste collected and managed by local authorities. This is essentially all waste collected by local authorities. This is referred to as 'local authority collected waste'.

• Household waste – includes waste from households plus waste collected via other local authority waste activities, such as street cleaning, parks and grounds, and street bins.

• Waste from households - Waste collected kerbside from Households and collection points, such as household waste recycling centres and bring banks. This narrower definition of waste is not included in this article.

All other waste generated in the UK is collected and managed by private sector companies and is not included in household and local authority collected municipal waste statistics. Further information can be found in the recycling explainer that accompanies the annual release on the Defra website.

Page updated 20 April 2026