Daily Mail criticised over waste articles

The Daily Mail has been forced to remove two online articles it published about waste and recycling, as well as publishing corrections on another of its stories on the issue at the request of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

Peter Jones, a senior consultant at Eunomia, complained to the PCC that two Daily Mail articles which discussed the impact of the EU Waste Framework Directive on recycling in the UK had inaccurately reported the impact of the regulation.

Mr Jones joined Eunomia after a career in public sector policy development, primarily in connection with legal aid and spent a year seconded to DECC.

He claimed that the Daily Mail articles one from August and the other from October 2013 had inaccurately suggested that householders would have to separate waste into five separate bins and that weekly collections would have to be axed.

As a result, the newspaper removed the August article and published a correction to the other, published on October 16 2013, which clarified that the EU Directive would not require separate bins for four types of recyclable material and that councils would not be barred from collecting waste on a weekly basis.

In addition, Mr Jones also complained to the PCC about another Daily Mail article from April 6 2013 entitled Recycling: the great con trick, which discussed the export of recycling from the UK, suggesting that millions of tonnes of recycling was being set abroad to be landfilled (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr Jones claimed that the article contained inaccuracies concerning the quantity of household recycling sent abroad, the amount which ends up in landfill and the amount of material which is rejected by UK processors.

After the intervention of the PCC, the Daily Mail then published the following correction:
An article (6 April 2013) said that millions of tonnes of household recycling is dumped abroad. In fact, this figure relates to household and commercial waste purchased by processors abroad, of which the proportion deemed unusable and ending up in landfill is unknown. We are happy to clarify that the claim that most’ recyclable material is rejected was based on a survey of the attitudes of UK processors towards the minority of recyclable material which is collected commingled, rather than separately.

Similar claims about millions of tonnes of recycling ending up in landfill were also made in an earlier Daily Mail article from February 2013, which Mr Jones said he didnt see until it was too late to complain.

Gratifying

Mr Jones said that resolving his two complaints about the Daily Mails eager journalism had taken a long time details on both complaints were published on the PCC website yesterday (March 18) but that the end results were gratifying.

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, he said: Well I am very pleased with the result in the end. Was it worthwhile? Yes.

The damage is done unfortunately. The stories were widely read and stayed on line for a long time. They were powerful because they confirmed preconceptions some people have that local authorities run bad services and are all out to fiddle you that has taken root to some extent. But I think the Mail has since been more accurate in its reporting of the issue, although it hasnt changed its perception and they are very pro-weekly collections.

They are themselves very good recyclers and like to make the same points again and again in articles, but I dont think they will be doing that anymore on the issues Ive tackled.

Weekly collections

Mr Jones said that waste and recycling issues did not generally seem to be a big issue in the media, but that weekly collections in particular seemed to be a bit of a Daily Mail special.

On Monday (March 17), the Daily Mail published an interview with communities secretary Eric Pickles, which reported the ministers desire to amend the Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 to increase the number of councils collecting waste on a weekly basis (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr Jones commented that the possibility of a legislative change to set quality standards for waste collections opened up a new avenue to the debate.

He said: The question is, if there really is an appetite for weekly residual collections amongst the public, how should we respond to that?

“I think theres a tendency to regard a weekly residual waste collection as a high quality service, and we need to work on changing that perception if were to enjoy public support for increasing recycling.”

Mr Jones said that frequent collections of dry recyclables and food waste helped to drive up recycling and that householders would not want some waste items such as nappies left in a waste bin for too long.

But, he added: “Time and again we find that constraining residual waste capacity, whether through smaller bins or lower frequency, is one of the most effective measures you can take to increase recycling.