LESS of our household waste is ending up in landfill, new figures show.

And Council bosses believe that a recent boost to its recycling collections is having the desired effect.

The amount of rubbish being landfilled has been slashed by more than two-thirds in the last four years, making Bradford Council the third best performer in the Yorkshire region, according to a new report.

In total, half of all the district's domestic waste is now recycled, while under a quarter ends up in landfill and the rest is burnt as fuel.

Bradford Council recently started collecting recyclable waste from homes each fortnight, and also started accepting plastic bottles as well as glass and cans.

Councillor Andrew Thornton, executive member for the environment, said: "These figures show that we are making significant progress in our bid to minimise the amount of waste the district sends to landfill and to boost recycling.

"We recently introduced fortnightly kerbside recycling collections and although it is still early days, indications are that this has improved the amount of glass, plastic and cans recycled by 20 per cent.

"This is good news for the environment and good news for the Council Tax payer but we need to keep going - throwing away less, increasing re-use and recycling more."

In 2013-14, 7,553 tonnes of glass, card and plastic was collected for recycling by the Council's bin crews, up from 6,207 the year before.

But the report also shows that the Council remains heavily reliant on a waste treatment facility, where rubbish is taken for further sorting, to boost its recycling rates.

In 2013-14, the facility sorted nearly 165,000 tonnes of waste, and managed to extract an extra 59,000 tonnes for recycling and 61,000 tonnes to be burnt as fuel.

The report also shows what the effect of the authority's controversial tip permit scheme has been.

The residents' permit scheme, introduced last year, was designed to stop people from neighbouring districts using Bradford's tips.

To date, around 78,000 permits have been issued, and the amount being collected at the district's tips has dropped by about seven per cent, which the report calls "a significant decrease".

It says: "The greatest reduction has been observed at those household waste recycling centres in close proximity to the boundary with neighbouring local authorities."

The performance data will be discussed by Bradford Council’s Environment and Waste Management Overview and Scrutiny Committee when it meets at City Hall on Tuesday, September 30.