As landfill runs out, councils will be forced to drastically increase the amount they recycle or see London ringed with damaging incinerators. Darren Johnson, Green Party Member of the London Assembly said:
‘The concept of giving people larger boxes to encourage recycling is laughably easy. 92% of what goes into a bin can be recycled. Lets have the big wheelie bin for the recyclable items and the small box for the rest of the rubbish.’
Increasing capacity for household recycling is just one of many ideas from the Green’s new Waste Plan for London. The plan is aimed at changing the approach to waste in London, viewing it as a valuable resource for re-use and recycling rather than something to be discarded. Other ideas in the plan include:
· Reducing waste with money back schemes on glass bottles and other reusable containers.· Offering all homes in London composting services for green and organic waste.· Encouraging re-use and recycling industries and initiatives such as ‘swap days’ where people can trade in unwanted items for ones they need.· Increasing public knowledge and awareness of how and where to recycle everything from clothes hangers to Lego.· Ensuring all public litter bins to have compartments for paper, glass, plastic and cans to get the public used to the idea of recycling.
While much depends on individual’s willingness to recycle, schemes in the UK and abroad have found that with the right services people enthusiastically seize the opportunity. In Wye, Kent the local council was able to reduce ordinary rubbish collection to once a fortnight due to the success of the their recycling and composting scheme while in Mersea Island, Essex 90% of households covered by the scheme took part.
‘Given the choice, I’m confident that Londoners would recycle rather than see an incinerator built in their neighbourhood. It is time that all levels of government gave them the encouragement and support to do that’ said Darren
Notes:
Attached items are:
Photo of Cllr Darren Johnson AM, with his vision of how recycling boxes and rubbish bins should look.A summary of the Green Waste Plan for London
A spreadsheet showing the current recycling rates for London Boroughs. In order to effectively tackle to problem of waste in London, Greens are calling for recycling targets of 55% by 2010 and 80% by 2015.