Labour county councillor Tina Bhartwas has raised concerns about the amount of recyclable waste from Herts that is sent overseas.

At the county council’s network of recycling centres, residents are able to recycle a wide range of materials – including glass, cans, textiles, paper, compostables and even electricals.

Latest data shows that last year 87.2 per cent of those materials collected at the county council’s network of recycling centres were recycled within the UK.

But the remaining 12.8 per cent, according to the data for 2020/21, was sent much further away – with 11.3 per cent reported to have been sent to West Africa and Asia and 1.5 per cent to the EU.

At a meeting of the county council’s environment panel on Thursday, February 3, Cllr Bhartwas said: “We should be really proud that we are doing quite well in terms of having 87.2 per cent that the end destination is in the UK.

“But I remain quite concerned about the 11.3 per cent that going to West Africa and Asia.

“Because a) that’s a significant figure, I think, and b) that’s a significant distance as well, in comparison to the 1.5 to the EU.”

After asking what was being done to tackle the issue, the Letchworth North county councillor said: “I really don’t think there’s very many circumstances in which we can justify sending things to their end destination being that far away – at least not at the current rate.

“I don’t view that as sustainable.”

The data was presented as councillors were asked to consider the 2020/21 annual report of the Hertfordshire Waste Partnership (HWP), which represents all 11 councils in Hertfordshire.

Duncan Jones – partnership development manager of the HWP – said the aim was to work with partners across the UK to create commercial circumstances that would encourage investment in reprocessing infrastructure in the UK.

He said there were no materials recycling facilities or waste brokers that would opt to send materials overseas if there was a UK option that presented a better overall option, but stressed that it was a ‘global market’ and that the materials were ‘traded globally’.

Data included in the HWP annual report also includes the final destinations of materials that are sent for composting, recycling and reuse by all 11 Hertfordshire councils.

Across the county overall it shows, 85.3 per cent of the county’s recyclables were recycled in the UK in 2020/21.

And it reports that overall 37,000 tonnes of ‘recyclables’ from the county were sent overseas for reprocessing last year.