WRAP is pleased to announce that the Local Authority Portal (LA Portal) will soon be featuring LIVE data for the current financial year, to reflect policy changes and ensure citizens are aware of these when using the Recycle Now Recycling Locator.
The LA Portal is an interactive local authority data collation point of waste and recycling collection scheme data, benchmarking data and other features such as the “Costing Tool”.
The scheme and performance values are a key reference point in the development of funding calculations for local authorities, such as New Burdens funding for separate food waste in England. Ensuring the collection scheme data is correct is essential to ensure that the current collection configurations are accurately reflected in the data. With so many changes and developments to your services, it is vital that we all check and update the LA Portal throughout the year.
Your support updating the Portal
The LA Portal team will soon be requesting updates for your 2025-26 scheme information. Traditionally, we have requested all local authorities to review and update their scheme information between January and March for the nearly concluded financial year (you may know this task by the acronym LAPAU). However, moving forward, we want to present LIVE local authority data, and we will only be requesting your scheme data yearly for the current financial year, rather than previous financial year. This will provide LA Portal and Recycle Now Locator users with a more accurate and timely understanding of ongoing activities, particularly in light of the policy changes being implemented.
We encourage you to continually update the LA Portal with any changes throughout the year.
A step-by-step guide for updating the Portal can be found here: LAPAU Guidance
The update will refresh the values presented within the Portal which are used for a variety of applications including:
- An up-to-date hub for local authorities to view collection scheme information.
- Scheme performance benchmarking.
- Indicative collection costs.
- Information for the Recycle Now Recycling Locator which provides the general public with information on what materials can be recycled where, based on their postcode.
Benchmarking
The performance data available on the Portal displays Waste Data Flow tonnages and compares local authorities against one another using their recycling yields (measured in kilograms per household per year for each main material). Local authorities can view and compare their performance data with UK countries, regions and neighbouring LAs. Waste composition data, based on scheme type and materials collected, are applied to comingled tonnages to be able to estimate yields for the benchmarking tables. This is useful and visually appealing information to convey to politicians when considering future plans in the context of where you are now.
Costing Tool
The Costing Tool provides local authorities with indicative kerbside collection costs and performance data. Users can view and compare different kerbside collection schemes, providing a quick and easy first step for an authority considering alternative collection options. WRAPs Kerbside Analysis Tool (KAT) is used to generate the outputs presented in this tool. KAT is an established model utilised extensively by local authorities when modelling potential service changes. It is important to note that these modelled costs are specifically for kerbside properties only, therefore the variation in costs of collecting from communal bins (e.g. flats) and non-mainline rounds are not incorporated.
The tool consists of two main features: The personalised, indicative, kerbside collection costs and a comparison of the scheme’s performance for your specific local authority.
If you do not have a WRAP LA Portal user account, you can create one here. It is a quick and easy process and will enable you to view the scheme and performance data available on the Portal. If you require editing permissions to update the scheme information, please contact us at LA-Recycling@wrap.ngo
