Results of a survey of the waste in the East Riding’s green bins show that residents are trying to reduce what they throw away.
The survey, by East Riding of Yorkshire Council, is the latest in a series of nine through to 2012, monitoring what is put in the green bins and sent to landfill.
While the amount of waste in the bins was down, nearly a third of it was food, much of it still in unopened packaging.
Councillor Symon Fraser, portfolio holder for environment and planning, said: “These surveys are helping us determine which recycling and composting facilities and services will best help our residents.
“As a result of the earlier surveys, we delivered the brown bins for garden waste and last month announced the future collection of food waste and cardboard.
“The brown bins are a shining example of success, now taking more than 80 per cent of garden waste out of the green bins and, therefore, out of landfill. Instead, it is being recycled as compost.”
A further 7.5 per cent of the waste in the green bins was paper, cans and plastic bottles which should have been put in the blue bins for recycling.
This compares with 10 per cent in the green bin survey in November 2007.
Councillor Fraser added: “It is very good news that East Riding households are sending less waste to landfill.”
Two significant areas of waste are baby nappies and cardboard. Disposable nappies made up over four per cent of the waste in the green bins that were surveyed.
Cardboard was five per cent of the green bin waste, but this is expected to decline after the new collection service is rolled out across the East Riding towards the end of the year.
The surveys involve a selection of bins which are randomly chosen and the waste sorted by hand, weighed and analysed.
