Waste Diversion Rate Calculator
The share of a household's or site's waste diverted from landfill — recycling, organics and other recovery against what goes to the tip — with the per-person figures, the contamination allowance, and how much more would have to be diverted to reach a target.
Diversion rate is everything recovered over everything thrown away.
How the waste diversion rate calculator works
Diversion rate is everything recovered over everything thrown away. Recycling that is contaminated ends up in landfill anyway, so an allowance for contamination comes off the recycled stream before the rate is struck. Against a target — many councils aim for 65 to 80% — the gap is the extra weight that would have to move from the landfill bin to recovery.
Formula: diverted = recycling × (1 − contamination) + organics + other; rate = diverted / (diverted + landfill)
Worked examples
| Inputs | Diversion rate | Note |
|---|---|---|
| A typical three-person household | 52.59% | about 53% |
| With food scraps composted | 71.11% | over 70% |
| Clean recycling | 55.56% | a few points higher |
FAQFrequently asked questions
What is a diversion rate?
The share of waste that is recycled, composted or otherwise recovered instead of landfilled. It is the standard measure councils and companies report against.
What is a typical rate?
Around 40 to 55% for households with kerbside recycling, over 70% where food and garden organics are collected, and 80% or more for well-run commercial sites.
Why allow for contamination?
Because recycling with the wrong things in it is rejected at the sorting facility and landfilled. Ten to twenty per cent contamination is common; every point of it is diverted waste that was not.
What moves the rate most?
Food waste — it is a third or more of the landfill bin by weight in most households. A compost bin or an organics collection is the single biggest lever.
Does weight or volume matter?
Rates are reported by weight, which favours dense streams like glass and organics. Volume is what fills the bin; the two can tell different stories.
Where these figures come from
- UK DESNZ / DEFRA — Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors — the flight, fuel and waste emission factors used here
- Scarborough et al. (2014), Climatic Change — Dietary greenhouse gas emissions — the per-diet daily emission figures
- US EPA — Technical Assistance Document for the Reporting of Daily Air Quality (AQI) — the PM2.5 breakpoints the air quality calculator uses
- Australian Government — National Greenhouse Accounts Factors — the official Australian emission factors
Last checked: September 2026. Factors are taken from published government and peer-reviewed sources, each named on the page with its year.