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Councils’ recycling rates are being boosted by alternate-week household waste collection, the Local Government Association has claimed.

Its study, based on the most recent Defra council waste statistics, shows that, on average, 30% of household waste is recycled or composted by councils with alternate-week collection, compared with 23% by those without such a scheme.

Alternate-week collection is where general rubbish is collected one week and recycling green bins the next.

The 10 councils with the highest recycling rates, including North Kesteven (51.5%) and Rushcliffe (49.9%) in the East Midlands and South Cambridgeshire (49.4%), have all adopted alternate-week collection.

In addition, eight out of 10 councils with the most improved recycling rates use alternate-week collection.

If this recycling rate were replicated across the country, the LGA claimed that around £22m would be saved each year in landfill tax and 1.2 million tonnes of waste would not go to landfill.