Speaking at the 'Towards a Londoner's Europe' environmental conference, Mr Livingstone said that he hoped that lessons learned from the European experts would bring about important changes.
Mr Livingstone said: “We're looking so that not only do we recycle our waste, but Londoners get employed to actually process it. We think we'll get as much as 10,000 jobs working in the industry in London.”
The conference allowed Senator Peter Strieder, the Minister of Urban Development in Berlin, Yves Contassot, Deputy Mayor of Paris and Minister Leonid Bochin, Head of Department for Nature Use and Environmental Protection in Moscow to share their knowledge of best practice with London's waste strategists.
“There's no point in starting from scratch,” said Mr Livingstone, “let's just steal their ideas”.
Germany
Berlin is one of the world's best urban areas in terms of recycling, with a rate heading past the 37% mark, in a city of around 3.5 million people.
Mr Strieder said: “In Berlin we reduced the amount of [discarded] waste from 2 million tonnes in 1992 to around about 1 million tonnes 10 years later.”
The 'Green Dot' system in Germany means that householders separate and recover packaging materials that display a green recycling mark. The cost of the system is put onto the price of each item on supermarket shelves.
“You can decide what you are going to buy – If you don't buy cans, you don't pay for the collecting of the cans.” Mr Strieder explained.
He added: “With the income of this tax, the system is financed – the collecting system, the transport system and the recycling system – because it's very hard to earn money with the recycling.”
In Berlin, around half the waste goes to a 520,000 tonne capacity energy-from-waste incinerator, and with recycling taking care of the rest. The city authority plans to close all landfill sites by 2005.
Education
Although Russia is still struggling to overcome the economic turmoil resulting from the collapse of communism, the delegation from Moscow had some real successes in raising awareness about recycling in schools.
Mr Livingstone said: “There they are making it a key part of their education of children to make them aware, so that a generation is growing up that's more protective of the environment.”
London's mayor pointed out that young people will therefore be a key target for future recycling awareness campaigns in the capital.
He said: “Young Londoners are key to making recycling work. They will make sure their parents do it in the same way you find children persuading their parents to give up smoking – they're a really powerful force for change.”
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