To ask the Minister of Justice whether her Department is implementing any measures to increase recycling rates in buildings used by her Department or its arm's-length bodies.

The Department’s Outline Sustainability Strategy sets out our goals and supporting actions to reduce our carbon footprint.

The Department of Justice and its agencies actively promote recycling with recycling bins available across our buildings. Under our strategy, we continue to review levels of recycling with a view to setting targets for improvement, where appropriate, by 2025/26.

We have an active information programme in place to encourage behavioural change with our staff, both in the workplace and at home. For example, we actively promote and encourage staff to participate in the NICS Removal of Single Use Plastic Initiatives, such as Plastic Free Fridays. We also promote other key events such as National Recycling Week.

Recycling activities also occur at each prison establishment, creating inmate activity and helping reduce the levels of waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill. All accommodation areas have separate containers for general waste, recyclables and food waste.

All prisons have compactors, balers and other recycling equipment on site; which increase the recycling rates at each establishment this has increased recycling rates (paper, plastics, cardboard, metal, wood).

At HMP Maghaberry, the recycling facility recycles a range of plastics and other waste such as: recycling expired covid test kits, recycling decommissioned laptops to extract precious metals, the separate collection and disposal of Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment (WEEE), making briquettes from paper and sawdust and repairing old wheelchairs and bicycles for charity.