Camden New Journal - FORUM: Opinion in the CNJ Published: 11 October 2007
Cllr Alexis Rowell at a melting ice cap, one of the effects of our waste problem
We’re on the right track, but some recycling is just a waste
Camden’s all-party Eco Task Force is about to release its second substantive report on waste and recycling. Task Force Chairman Cllr Alexis Rowell explains the report
CAMDEN concentrates on boosting recycling rates at the lowest possible cost because that’s what the Government (and the EU) tells it to do. We currently recycle 27 per cent of our household waste, which is good by London standards. But the Sustainability Task Force is worried that this focus on tonnage targets may not be very environmentally friendly.
The government wants us to recycle 40 per cent of our household waste by 2010 and 50 per cent by 2050. Councils are evaluated by the Audit Commission using indicators like this. The challenge for us therefore is to reframe our waste and recycling strategy to make it more environmentally friendly, yet still hit these government-imposed targets. Another way of saying this is: How can we increase our recycling rates significantly without compromising our commitment to addressing climate change?
Are we saying it doesn’t make sense to recycle? No, of course we’re not. It’s taken a lot of effort to persuade people to recycle and we must be careful not to undermine that work. So here’s another key question: How do we retain public confidence in the concept of recycling whilst eliminating any practices that can be shown to be environmentally unfriendly?
Some recycling really is pointless. For example, it will never make sense to put a green glass bottle in a commingled box (kerbside collection), then crush it with other recycling in the back of a waste truck, then transport it to an expensive and energy-intensive separation facility in Greenwich, then separate it by hand when the machines don’t work, and then truck it across the country to be turned into aggregate for our roads because it’s too contaminated for British bottle makers to use.
But most recycling simply needs refocusing to take into account the environmental impacts. So if we all took our bottles to bottle banks instead of putting them in the commingled kerbside boxes, then we’d really be helping the environment.
Of course recycling is far less important than avoiding the creation of waste in the first place. That’s why we’ve recommended the adoption of a “Zero Waste Strategy” as a way to help Camden’s residents, institutions and businesses focus on the need to reduce the amount of waste we create. Take food waste, for example. Each year in the UK we throw away about one third of all the food we buy and at least half of this is food that could have been eaten.
Over-packaging is also a problem. In Germany shoppers have the right to leave any excess packaging at the till and shops are legally obliged to recycle it. Unfortunately there’s no such law here. So another key question we’ve addressed in our report is: How can we minimise waste creation whilst bearing in mind that local authorities have little direct influence on the individuals and businesses which create most of the waste? One of the things we’re proposing is a voluntary plastic bag ban in certain village-type areas of Camden.
Once a product has been made, sold and deemed surplus to requirements by the buyer we need to find ways to reuse it. A reused product is a valuable weapon in the battle against climate change. So the fourth key question underlying this report is: How can we maximise re-use as much as possible? We believe the Council should do more to promote free exchange websites. We would also like to introduce an annual “Street Swap Day” where residents put things on the pavement that they no longer want but which they think could be reused by someone else.
The final question we have addressed is: How can we extract as much energy or value as possible from our waste without diluting our reduce-reuse-recycle message? In its Waste Strategy the Government has said that councils should start investigating the production of electricity from food waste. We have visited a government-funded experiment of this technology which looks interesting. We have also been talking to a company which is proposing to make vehicle fuel (biomethane) out of food waste. There is a serious possibility that we could run part or all of our vehicle fleet on the rotting food you throw away!
Of course this would require the collection of food waste from residents. Camden has traditionally steered clear of food waste collections because of the perceived difficulties and the “yeuk factor”. But many councils, including inner city ones, now collect food waste.
Camden’s Waste and Recycling Team have already introduced many excellent initiatives, but we believe that there are many more, already in place elsewhere in the UK or abroad, which could significantly help us in the battle against climate change.
* Cllr Alexis Rowell, Camden Eco-Champion and Chair of the Sustainability Task Force
Comment on this article. (You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)
