Announcement on London&#39s 21 million recycling fund expected next week

London had been allocated 21.3m from DEFRA's 140m Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund to be administered jointly by the Greater London Authority, the Association of London Government and London Waste Action.

Colin Roberts, chief executive of London Waste Action told letsrecycle.com: “An announcement will be made after Monday, when the board will meet to make certain we've been able to co-ordinate the funds with the boroughs and to finalise agreement with DEFRA.”

London's full amount is to be distributed in two chunks, with the first 7.6 million to be handed out this year and the remaining 13.7 million to be handed out during 2003. In this year's allocation, London Boroughs will receive 3.8 million for capital expenditure and 3.8 million for resource expenditure.

Richmond
Since Richmond got their application in so early and since it was of such a high standard, the borough has already been given the nod for 588,000. The other boroughs will have their bids finalised on Monday by the implementation board.

Richmond will be spending their grant on increasing its door-to-door recycling project from 7,000 households to 58,000 households.

From November 2002, the scheme will see residents in houses that have gardens able to recycle glass, textiles, cans, foil and newspapers and magazines with a fortnightly collection service. Residents in houses without gardens are already served with a &#39b;lack box' recycling scheme.

Commenting on the project, leader of Richmond Council Tony Arbour said: “We have already achieved one of the highest recycling rates in London – with the help of this grant and by working in partnership with the local community and our reprocessors, our residents will be able to recycle even more.”

Richmond will be supported in the project by the British Glass Recycling Company, Corus Steel Packaging Recycling, Alcan Aluminium Can Recycling and LM Barry Textile Merchants. Cheshire Recycling will be supplying a new fleet of vehicles for the scheme, and will also be donating 1 for every tonne of waste recycled to the charity Save the Children.