The amount of household waste being recycled in England has more than trebled in the past decade, official figures showed yesterday.

But householders are still throwing away more than 60 per cent of their rubbish, the statistics from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) found.

The proportion of household waste being recycled, composted or reused rose slightly last year from 37.6 per cent in 2008/2009 to 39.7 per cent in 2009/2010.

According to the figures, 9.4 million tonnes of waste was recycled last year, up from 9.1 million the year before and more than three times the 2.8 million tonnes recycled in 2000/2001.

The overall amount of waste created by households has fallen by 2.7 per cent on the previous year and now stands at 23.7 million tonnes.

Each English household threw away on average just over a tonne of rubbish in the year, of which 411 kilograms was recycled, composted or reused and 625kg ended up in landfill or incinerated.

The amount of waste being sent to landfill by local councils fell by 9.4 per cent to 12.5 million tonnes last year.

The government recently launched a review into England’s waste strategy in a bid to encourage people to reduce levels of rubbish being thrown into landfill and make it easier for them to increase the amount of waste being recycled.

Ministers have been keen to cut the number of wheelie bins and containers people have to deal with to sort their waste and recycling.

And in a move which could see a reversal in the trend towards fortnightly bin rounds, brought in as part of efforts to boost recycling, the review is also looking at how the British government can work with councils to increase the frequency and quality of collections.