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New recycling figures revealed
22 August 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
If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.
Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jun 2008
