To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (i) for his Department’s assessment of efforts made by Northern Ireland waste management delivery structures to achieve consistency in recyclables across all local council areas; and (ii) when these assessments were carried out.

My emphasis for recycling is on increasing the quality and quantity of the resources that are collected, realising the value of recycling to the local economy, whilst delivering environmental and economic benefits.

The recent discussion document Future Recycling & Separate Collection of Waste of a Household Nature in Northern Ireland sought views on a series of proposals aimed at transforming the landscape of recycling here, including proposals relating to kerbside recycling services and the consistency of services offered throughout Northern Ireland.

Preparatory work to bring forward this consultation required a review of the current waste management delivery structures and modelling to be undertaken to determine how recycling rates could be impacted should changes be made. This information is available in the report Municipal Recycling Potential in NI 2020, which can be found on the DAERA website.

A Summary of Responses to the discussion document was published in June 2021 and work is now progressing to bring forward a range of policy measures based on the outcomes of this.

Departmental officials are currently engaging and collaborating with local councils through a series of workshops with the aim of co-designing a set of minimum service standards to ensure all eleven local councils are performing collections to an agreed minimum standard.