Request for information on Joint Waste Strategy targets

Good afternoon,

 Further to our email acknowledging your freedom of information request with reference (2026-287), our response is as follows.

 Your request:

The summary Joint Waste Strategy includes the following targets
• Reduce avoidable food waste by 50%
• Reduce recyclable material in residual waste by 50%
• 50% of household waste to be reused, recycled or composted
Can you please clarify and expand:
1. Could you give the starting point figures for a. avoidable food waste, b. recyclable material in residual waste and c. household waste to be reused, recycled or composted - at NLWA level and also for each of the seven boroughs.
2. How is the amount of avoidable food waste measured and how is it decided when the waste is avoidable? How often is this data collected and published?
3. The full JWS says that the metric for food waste is ‘% of residual’ but the target as stated in the summary does not make that clear. Can you confirm that the target relates to the % of food waste in the residual waste and not the total amount of food waste?
4. How is the amount of recyclable material in residual waste measured and how is it decided when the material is recyclable? How often is this data collected and published?
5. How is the amount of household waste to be reused, recycled or composted measured? Does this relate only to material that is collected by local authorities in the NLWA or incorporate data on other agencies and individuals that are reusing, recycling or composting? How often is this data collected and published?

Our responses:

Answers to the questions are as follows:

 Q1a:

The strategy states:

To help with our aspiration to reduce waste, we have carried out analysis which shows that food waste makes up a significant proportion of north London’s residual waste (32%) with almost a quarter (24%) of the residual waste being avoidable food waste. 

 Q1b:

The strategy states: " A further 15% of residual waste is made up of other material which could have been collected for recycling using existing household services.”

Q1c:

The below 2023/24 recycling rates for each of the boroughs and at NLWA-level are taken from the official  “Local authority collected waste management - annual results” dataset published by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

Q2:

The strategy provides the following definition of avoidable food waste:

“Avoidable food waste is food and drink thrown away that was, at some point prior to disposal, edible. In contrast to inedible items such as banana peel, eggshells etc which can be classified as ‘unavoidable’.”

This data is measured through a waste composition analysis, which was last conducted between 2022 and 2023. NLWA are currently planning on commissioning a new analysis once upcoming waste legislation reforms have been implemented, to provide insights into the impacts that these reforms have had on north London’s waste. When new data is available, this will be reported on at an NLWA-wide level in NLWA’s Annual Report against the Joint Waste Strategy targets and performance metrics, as committed to within the strategy.

 Q3:

As stated in the full strategy: “Over the course of this strategy, we will aim to reduce the avoidable food waste found in household residual waste by 50%.” This is an NLWA-wide target and will be reported as such in the NLWA Annual Report when new data becomes available.

 Q4:

Similarly to avoidable food waste, this data is measured through a waste composition analysis. This is classified as dry mixed recycling material that is collected consistently across all boroughs, i.e. the acceptable materials that can be placed in residents' commingled recycling bins. This is an NLWA-wide target and will be reported as such in the NLWA Annual Report when new data becomes available.

 Q5:

This metric is the same as the borough’s and NLWA’s household recycling rate – the percentage of household waste collected by local authorities that is sent for reuse, recycling or composting.

The official data is published by the government on an annual basis, however this data is published with a significant time-lag (the 2024/25 data was published in March 2026) due to reconciliation and verification. For the purposes of timely reporting in the NLWA Annual Report, provisional calculations are made based on the data that NLWA holds at the time.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you may ask for an internal review, which should be submitted within two months of when you received our response to either informationrequests@nlwa.gov.uk or enquiry form quoting the above reference.   

If you are not content with the outcome of the review, you may complain to the Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, or via their online portal. The Information Commissioner will not usually accept complaints before a review has been completed.  
Website: https://ico.org.uk  

Kind Regards,  

North London Waste Authority