The
government has set strict recycling targets for all London boroughs and it's
simply unacceptable that Ealing Council is still falling so short. According to current government figures,
the council is just scraping to meet the half-way point of the 30% target it has
to meet by April.
Friends
of the Earth believes that at least 80% of our waste could be recycled and we're
calling for targets of 50% by 2010. We know it can be done; Switzerland, Holland
and Germany all recycle more than 50% of household waste.
We are
pleased that the council is currently rolling out a new food waste collection
service, but it needs to go further and do more to help residents understand the
importance of recycling as much as possible.
This is
also a timely reminder that residents have a responsibility and need to meet the
council halfway. We could all do more.
(Press
release, Rebecca Holmes, January 2006)
Many
people would like to be able to recycle plastic because there is so much of it.
Currently Ealing says “plastics are a light but bulky part of household waste.
This makes them difficult to collect and store in sufficient quantities to make
recycling economically viable.” For this reason they don’t currently collect
plastic as part of the green box collection, although they say that they are
looking into the possibility of collecting plastic bottles. Meanwhile bottles and other plastic
waste can be taken to the 8 recycling sites.
At
present it seems that it makes best economic sense to concentrate on plastic
bottles. Sutton, the borough with the highest recycling rate in London (28%)
says that these are the only plastics that they can sell on to the manufacturers
for recycling into new products.
It’s
interesting to see what our neighbours are doing. Currently Hillingdon and
Hammersmith include plastic bottles in their doorstep collection. Brent, Harrow,
Hounslow and Richmond don’t, but they all have facilities to recycle bottles
(and in some cases other plastics) in banks or recycling centres.
If you
want to know more, there is a wealth of information on all aspects of recycling
at www.recycle-more.co.uk
You
may also be interested to know about the Waste and Resources Action Programme (
WRAP). Its
mission is to accelerate resource efficiency by creating efficient markets for
recycled materials and products, while removing barriers to waste minimisation,
re-use and recycling. One of its projects is a searchable website where
businesses can offer their unwanted plastics for recycling or look to buy
recycled plastic for use in their processes.
According
to WRAP, the key barrier to plastics recycling is not the material itself but
the lack of infrastructure for its recovery. All plastics can be recycled, but
it is estimated that only about 7% of plastic waste is currently being recycled
in the UK. About half of local authorities offer some kind of plastic bottle
collection service, and only about 15% of UK households are served by kerbside
collections that include plastic bottles. Mixed plastics have to be sorted into
polymer type and colour before they can be recycled; at present this is mainly
done manually although technology is being introduced to sort automatically. For
further information visit www.wrap.org.uk.
It is
also worth visiting www.wasteonline.org.uk . Among its offerings you will find an
information sheet on plastics, and a downloadable report, Plastics in the
UK economy, a guide to polymer use and the opportunities for
recycling, which looks at the use of plastics in different industry sectors and
explores the potential for recycling. (Warning: it is 84 pages
long!)