The survey's results, released this morning (see letsrecycle.com story), showed that the household waste recycling rate in England rose from 11.2% in March 2001 to 12.4% March 2002.
Commenting on the survey, Mr Meacher said: “These figures do show that we are making real progress in the war on waste. We have doubled the amount of household waste we have recycled since 1996. But these figures are only up to March 2002, it is a real problem getting this kind of data quickly and this is something we are looking into. It's reasonable to say that the recycling rate is about 13 to 14% at the moment.”
WET Bill
The government sees the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill as the key to reaching the demands of the European Landfill Directive to reduce the landfilling of biodegradable waste to 75% by 2010, 50% by 2013 and 35% by 2020.
The landfill rate fell from 78% to 77% in 2001-02, and Mr Meacher said the WET Bill would impose a “linear reduction” in this with its annual tradable allocations “physically shoe-horning the amount of waste we landfill”.
But discussing the figures from the latest survey, the environment minister said that people were already beginning to get the message about recycling judging from the increase in material being recycled at civic amenity and bring sites – up by almost 11% to 2.2 million tonnes.
But Mr Meacher admitted that more could be done, and expressed disappointment that the amount of waste being produced by English householders is increasing.
He said: “I am not claiming very much about the amount of [waste] growth, but ultimately the growth rate has slowed and there will eventually come a time when we will see a zero increase and even a decline.”
Pointing out that each householder produces 522kg of waste according to the survey, he said: “On average we produce half a tonne of waste, and it's the responsibility of us all to reduce that.”
Regional
The minister admitted that there was a significant variation in performance between councils in the north of England and in the South. The North East averages a 5.1% household recycling rate compared to the 17.7% average in the South East.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mr Meacher said: “There is a variation among regions – many councils in the south and south east are much better than those in the north, but even if a council is doing well, we are saying it will have to do better. We are simply asking for equality of effort.”
Mr Meacher denied the policy of setting high targets for already high performing councils was effectively penalising those councils that had put in extra effort before any statutory recycling targets were set.
He said: “I actually think it is in their self interest too. The fact that they are recycling so much means it will be easier for them to meet the Waste and Emissions Trading target, and their environments will be cleaner and neater. It's all mixed up with the quality of life issue.”
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