England’s recycling rate crept up by a mere 0.3 percentage points between 2012/13 to 2013/14, leading to renewed concern over the country’s ability to meet the EU recycling rate of 50% by 2020.

The latest annual figures show that 43.5% of household waste was recycled, reused or composted in the 2013/14 financial year, representing a fractional increase from 43.2% in 2012/13.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it remained ‘committed’ to the 50% recycling target require under the Waste Framework Directive and would be seeking help from the Waste & Resources Action Programme to determine what further measures may need to be taken to achieve this.

Alongside the national figures, data was published for each local authority and there was good news for the district of South Oxfordshire as it was crowned England’s top recycling local authority after it achieved a recycling rate of 65.71%. Rochford district council in Essex came second by recycling 65.47% of its household waste and Oxfordshire’s Vale of White Horse district council came third with 65.27%.

England’s lack of progress in recycling comes in contrast to Wales, recently reported a 54.3% municipal waste recycling rate for 2013/14 – a rise of two percentage points compared to the year before.