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17 Sep 1998
The Bill - which is being promoted by Labour MP David Chaytor, Friends of the Earth,Waste Watch and the Community Recycling Network - is expected to be adopted as a Private Members Bill this November. A similar Bill, introduced in March this year, and which ran out of Parliamentary time, was backed by 250 MPs, as well as numerous local authorities and recycling businesses.
Recycling newspapers and magazines not only reduces waste going to landfill sites but it also helps prevent wildlife rich forests in Scandinavia and Canada from being chopped down to provide the UK with “virgin paper”.
Mike Childs, Senior Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
“We very much hope that the Government will give its backing to this very important Bill. This new law would be bring enormous benefits for both the environment and the ecomomy. It will reduce waste and protect forests, as well as creating thousands of new jobs and saving the UK millions of pounds through the reduction in imports. Local authorities will also make huge financial savings enabling them to spend more on cash strapped services such as education.
The Bill will also mandate newspaper publishers to tell people how much recycled fibre individual titles contain (averaged over 6 months). For the first time this will enable people to guage which publications are the greenest.
[2] Ensuring that newspapers have to contain 80 per cent recycled newsprint by 2010 will also create
a market for the recycled material.
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
Media team
