Wales' recycling rates continue to rise

Recycling has increased again as Wales continues its journey towards being a zero-waste nation.

The headlines

Local authority municipal waste figures show the recycling rate has gone up from 66.6% in 2023-24 to 68.4% in 2024-25 – a complete transformation from around 5% pre devolution.
Just 0.7% of waste was disposed of via landfill in 2024 to 2025 – a vast decrease on the 95% sent prior to devolution.
Over half of Welsh local authorities met the 2024 to 2025 statutory target of 70% of waste being recycled, while over 90% reported an increase in their recycling rate compared with the previous year.

What this means for Wales

Increased recycling rates means thousands of tonnes of additional valuable recyclable materials are being fed back into the economy instead of being incinerated or landfilled.

Wales is already second in the world for recycling, leading the way in the UK and just behind Austria in the global rankings published by Eunomia Research and Consulting and Reloop in 2024. Being number 1 is still within our grasp if we keep up momentum!

Workplaces of Wales, let's keep sorting

These statistics are the first annual data published since new workplace recycling measures were introduced in Wales, requiring all businesses, public and third sector workplaces and collectors to keep key recyclable materials separate.

Since then, an extra 8,187 tonnes of recyclable material has been collected from workplaces by local authorities – up 42% on the previous year. Residual waste collected from workplaces has also dropped by 15.8%.

“I’m proud of every person in Wales who has played their part in getting us to where we are today – in our homes and now in our workplaces too. Thank you for joining this collective effort.”

Deputy First Minister with responsibility for Climate Change, Huw Irranca-Davies

Find out more

For more ideas on how to reduce waste head to our daily choices page.

Find out more about the workplace recycling law.