Instead of requiring every single household to be provided with kerbside collections of recyclables, the Municipal Waste Recycling Bill would now see local authorities obliged to provide the same provision for recycling to all residents as they provide for residual waste.
This means that for high rise flats that currently dispose of residual waste via communal containers at the base of the building, local authorities would have to provide communal containers for recyclables as well.
 Joan Ruddock MP |
Labour back-bench MP Joan Ruddock, who introduced the Bill into Parliament, explained: “When you live in a block of flats, you don't get waste collected from the door anyway. Whatever is being done at the moment with the normal waste collections we want applied to waste that has been separated for recycling, too. Local authorities would be able to collect it fully separated or in one single bag as they wish.”
Flexible
The first draft of the Bill was released this morning prior to its second reading in Parliament on Friday.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Ms Ruddock said that at the moment, a lot of recycling in the UK can only take place in bring sites, which are not easily accessible to all members of society.
The MP for Deptford and Lewisham explained: “A large number of households do not have access to recycling because the only facilities available to them are bring sites. But there are many households in the country without a car, there are elderly or disabled people who are unable to carry heavy loads to bring sites and even busy mothers who are unable to take the time out to recycle at bring sites.”
Target
The second main component of the Bill sets a target of 50% recycling or composting of municipal waste by 2010. The responsibility to reach this target would fall on the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Friends of the Earth, the pressure group that has helped draft the Bill and has led the campaign behind it, denied that this was an unnecessary addition to the recycling targets already in place.
“Those statutory targets aren't good enough,” said Friends of the Earth parliamentary campaigns spokesman Martyn Williams. “This is not a new area of policy for local authorities, this isn't going to make them do something they shouldn't already be doing – it's exactly the same, but using a better set of targets.”
Support
Although nervous in the run-up to the second reading of the Bill on Friday, both Ms Ruddock and Friends of the Earth are confident their legislation will pass on to the committee stage for further re-drafting. Ms Ruddock said that although she sympathised with MPs for having their attention drawn by the conflict over Iraq, she was certain there would be enough supporters in the House to allow the Bill to proceed.
“We have 300 members that are very supportive,” she said, “and it's also very, very popular in the country – I've had a great number of letters in support of what we are doing.”
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