Welcome to hertsdirect.org

Waste disposal

The county council, as Waste Disposal Authority, is responsible for finding ways to dispose of the 600,000 tonnes of household waste Hertfordshire's residents produce each year.

The Hertfordshire Waste Partnership (a partnership between the county council and 10 district councils) has developed a Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy that sets out policies for how we will deal with the county's household waste.

At the heart of the Strategy is the principle Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first priority is to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place, then either reuse materials, recycle or compost them.

Hertfordshire residents are already doing a great job recycling and composting around 44% of household waste, and we are committed to increasing this to at least 50% by 2012. We will do this by trying to increase the use of existing services and introducing new schemes to make recycling and composting easier.

Last year around 294,000 tonnes of household waste was not recycled. Whilst our focus is on reducing, reusing and recycling waste, there will always be some material left over that cannot be recycled. Government and European Union legislation means local authorities will face fines of up to an estimated £3bn if they do not reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. These fines will reduce the amount of money the county council can spend on providing other important services.

However effective we are in reducing, reusing and recycling waste, there will always be some material left to dispose of. But, rather than simply dispose of this waste, we are looking into ways of recovering valuable energy and materials from it, and therefore also reducing our reliance on landfill.

Our strategy focuses on what is known as the waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.

Click on the links below for more information on the 4Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle and recover) and how we are trying to find a solution to landfill.