SMUGGLERS WAY, a waste and recycling centre on the south bank of the River Thames, is busy first thing on a weekday. People unload rubbish from their cars, obediently distributing it among a myriad of containers—for batteries, bottles, cooking oil, wood and so on. Rubbish that cannot be recycled is lifted by a crane onto barges for incineration. Such places are a tribute to the recycling ethic that has gradually permeated Britain over the past two decades. But they risk being made redundant by a bigger trend.

Over the past six years the amount of rubbish recycled or otherwise thrown away by the average Englishman has fallen by 15% (see chart). Figures from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales show that the same has happened there. The nation is becoming strikingly less wasteful.

Recycling is probably part of the reason. The proportion of household waste by weight that is recycled has risen from 11% to 43% in England since 2001. In Wales 54% is recycled. That may have made people more aware of what they throw away. Steve Read of the Somerset Waste Partnership credits the introduction of a separate food waste collection with a 15% drop in overall waste. “When people saw how much they threw away, they thought, ‘Blimey!’ and changed their habits,” he says.

But greenery cannot explain the whole drop. Although recycling rates have been rising for years, the fall in waste per head began only in 2006. And some of the most abstemious places are the least green. The recycling rate in Newham, a poor east London borough, is a paltry 22%, yet overall household waste there has dropped by 7% since the start of 2011.

The economic slump has probably changed habits too. Consumer spending remains 4% below its 2008 peak. Home sales have almost halved in number since 2006, so it is likely that more stuff is piling up in attics. And some goods have turned digital. One of the most striking trends in the past few years is the decline in paper recycled by residents. Much of this may be newsprint: the circulation of British national dailies has fallen by 28% since 2007.

Above all, eating habits are changing. WRAP, a company that helps businesses use resources efficiently, estimates that household food waste dropped from 8.3m tonnes to 7.2m tonnes between 2006-07 and 2010, driven by a decline in fruit and vegetables. Other statistics show that the fall of the fresh vegetable and the rise of the processed meal has continued since then. Ready meals are consumed whole. And food packaging is becoming lighter as companies turn more environmentally conscious.

Local authorities are still trying to drive up recycling rates. They have an incentive: a landfill tax, introduced in 1996, has just increased from £64 ($98) per tonne to £72 per tonne and is set to go up to £80 in 2014. Now they are advising residents to reuse and repair old goods, notes Dustin Benton of the Green Alliance approvingly. Residents will be encouraged to donate old books, repair broken goods or put them out for others to use. Rubbish sites like Smugglers Way will remain, but will be collected from almost as much as they are dumped upon.