Friends of the Earth: Press Release: NEW RECYCLING FIGURES REVEALED

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NEW RECYCLING FIGURES REVEALED

22 Aug 2002

An analysis of new recycling figures for England, just released by the Government, shows very little improvement on recycling, with England only recycling a paltry 12 per cent of household waste. It shows that the Government has failed to deliver on promises made at the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago. At the last Earth Summit the UK promised to:

Hold per capita waste production at levels that prevail in the year 2000 – the new statistics reveal that waste has increased by 2.7 per cent between 2000 and 2001
Set up home and communitybased programmes, including separate collection of recyclable household waste – the government figures say that only 51 per cent of people have some form of separate collection of recyclable waste.

The top performing and worst performing local authorities are listed below. Friends of the Earth is campaigning for a Recycling Bill to mandate all local authorities to provide every household with a high quality doorstep recycling and composting service, with more government money for councils to provide such schemes.

Mike Childs, Senior Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“Ten years ago the Government promised at the Earth Summit to give people a decent recycling service and stop the amount of waste growing. The figures published today show that they have failed to deliver on these promises. Britain has an abysmal recycling record and without new money and legislation it is likely to stay that way. Some local authorities are doing well but many are doing virtually nothing. The poor performers must be hoping that no-one will notice them at the forthcoming Earth Summit.”

The 10 best performing authorities are:

Daventry District Council	42 per cent recycling
Eastleigh Borough Council	32 per cent
Forest Heath District Council	28 per cent
Chiltern District Council	27 per cent
Dorset County Council	27 per cent
St Edmondsbury District Council	26 per cent
Melton Borough Council	26 per cent
Sutton Borough Council	25 per cent
Bath & N.E. Somerset	24 per cent
New Forest	24 per cent

The worst 10 performing authorities are:

London Borough of Hackney	1 per cent recycling
North Cornwall District Council	1 per cent
Ashfield District Council	1 per cent
Sunderland City Council	1 per cent
London Borough of Newham	2 per cent
Blythe Valley Borough Council	2 per cent
Liverpool City Council	2 per cent
Corby Borough Council	2 per cent
Bolsover District Council	2 per cent
Wigan MBC	2 per cent
Burnley District Council	2 per cent
Cannock Chase Council	2 per cent

Notes

The Government’s recycling figures can be found at:
www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wastats/mwb0001/ ¬
download/xlsdata/annexb.xls

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