What We Do

WHAT WE DO

Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA) is a strategic waste and resource management authority, leading on the recycling and management of municipal waste across the Liverpool City Region.

Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA), and its private sector partners, manage waste resources, recycling and the transportation of waste, on behalf of five District Councils – and via a separate partnership with Halton Council, across the Liverpool City Region. The Authority plays a key and essential role in the management of waste resources across the Liverpool City Region, and this is reflected in its Vision:

“To improve people’s quality of life by ensuring that waste is sustainably managed to bring about the best combination of environmental, economic and social benefits.”

The Authority serves more than 1.5 million people living in the Liverpool City Region, providing 14 Household Waste Recycling Centres in Merseyside and two Centres in Halton as part its contract with Veolia UK. The local Centres allow for householders to recycle more than 40 different materials. MRWA also manages the processing of the co-mingled recycling collected at kerbside by five of the six council boroughs, which is sorted via its two Materials Recovery Facilities.

In 2017, we marked the beginning of a Resource Recovery Contract (RRC) which sees the Authority send Liverpool City Region’s black bag residual household waste from a Rail Transfer Loading Station in Knowsley to an Energy from Waste (EfW) plant in Teeside. The EfW plant produces enough electricity to provide power for up to 63,000 homes, using the 450,000 tonnes of household waste generated each year from its 600,000 households as a fuel for the production of electricity for the National Grid.

MRWA works with District Council partners across the region and is funded by a levy on each of the Merseyside District Councils. We take a lead in advocating zero waste, the circular economy, waste prevention, recycling and the safe and effective management of waste for our residents. We are also responsible for the aftercare of a number of closed landfill sites, which historically had been operated by the Authority or its predecessors.

You can read more about the Authority in the MRWA Annual Report 2023 (PDF)

ARCHIVE – 2021/22 MRWA Annual Report (PDF).