In advance of tomorrow's announcement by the Government of their long-overdue national waste management strategy, Friends of the Earth has repeated its call for an effective policy on waste minimisation backed up by legally enforceable targets and more reuse and recycling.

Friends of the Earth remains concerned that the dash to burn waste, highlighted by the rash of applications up and down the country for new municipal waste incinerators, will remove any incentive for waste minimisation and recycling. In particular, local authority waste disposal companies are signing long term contracts, committing them to supply minimum quantities of waste to feed these incinerators for many years to come. FOE believes local authorities are being forced down the road of waste incineration by Government inaction and by intense lobbying by industry, especially producers of plastics who are fighting moves to reduce packaging.

Roger Lilley, Industry and Pollution Campaigner said:

"Only legally enforceable targets will now stave off the crisis in waste management that we are facing. Once we go down the dead-end route of incineration, the huge capital costs involved will undermine effective policies to minimize and recycle waste."

WASTE MINIMISATION AND RECYCLING - SUPPORT FROM ALL SIDES

The Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment, Waste Management and Minimisation Working Group ( a grouping of key business interests) [1] said:

"The Group has concluded that there is clear evidence that waste minimisation is cost effective and offers significant environmental benefits ... The Group believes that a carrot-and -stick approach will probably be needed if a higher take up of Total Process Efficiency (TPE) is to be achieved."[1b]

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution [2] said:

"The Commission's general approach can be presented as a four stage procedure: - wherever possible, avoid creating waste - where wastes are unavoidable, recycle them if possible - where wastes cannot be recycled in the form of materials, recover energy from them - when the foregoing options have been exhausted, utilise the best practicable environmental option to dispose of waste."

The Public

The Government's own recent public opinion survey showed that 71% of people who thought a lot could be done said responsibility for the fact there is "not enough recycling" sat with national and local government. 88% of all people wanted Government to provide "more recycling facilities"[3].

A Friends of the Earth briefing on FOE's opposition to any new municipal incineration capacity is attached to this press release or available from Friends of the Earth on

ENDS

Alan Watson will be available for comment at the launch of the Government's White Paper on sustainable Waste Management tomorrow morning (12th) at the Cremorne Wharf Reclamation Facility, 27 Lots Road, Chelsea.

NOTES TO EDITORS

[1] Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment 4th Report October 1994 [1a] ACBE stated that it prefers to use the more positive name', total process efficiency (TPE) to refer to waste minimisation. [2] RCEP (1993) 17th Report on Incineration [3] DOE Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics No 16 1994.