The suggestions were made by the London Assembly Environment Committee, which was questioning Shirley Rodrigues – London’s deputy mayor for environment and energy – on the capital’s progress on recycling targets.
Currently London lags behind the rest of the country with its performance, recording an average of 33% compared to the national figure for England of 44.8%. Yet, Ms Rodrigues said the GLA was working to help London boroughs improve these statistics.
“We are asking each borough to develop a reduction and recycling plan which looks bottom up at what they are able to do,” she said.
“It is difficult for local authorities to take a circular economy approach so we have tried to identify what they might be able to do.”
The thrust of the GLA’s action on recycling lies in making sure all borough’s collect six dry mixed recyclables and have segregated food waste collections.
Due to its low recycling rates the city deal with large volumes of residual waste – but Ms Rodrigues opened the discussion by reiterating Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s belief that London does not need further incineration capacity and that the Mayor’s remains opposed to plans for an Energy from Waste (EfW) facility at Bexley.
Flats
Provision of recycling services to flats was identified as one of the reasons for London’s poor performance.
Yet Ms Rodrigues said projects looking for solutions were ongoing and highlighted the pressure the Greater London Authority (GLA) was placing on developers of new properties.
“We are asking each borough to develop a reduction and recycling plan which looks bottom up at what they are able to do.”
She said: “We are making sure there is space for infrastructure particularly for flatted properties.
“A circular economy statement is to be produced by each new development.”
However the deputy mayor also noted that there were limits to what Mr Khan could do to change London’s lack of space, a problem she said was also faced by other large cities.
Lack of space was also cited as an issue in delivering source segregated recycling services, rather than a commingled collection where materials are likely to be contaminated.
Food waste
Two thirds of London boroughs are now collecting food waste, according to Ms Rodrigues, who made it clear the GLA would be encouraging the remaining London local authorities to follow suit.
In answer to a question raised by Assembly Member Leonie Cooper, she also noted that the Mayor “reserves the right” to use his ‘powers of direction’ to force boroughs to collect food waste
Later Ms Rodrigues highlighted the fact that London has been announced as one of three flagship cities for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Food Initiative, meaning it will lead major food system projects to demonstrate how a circular economy vision for food can be achieved at scale.
Calculator
As part of its work to improve recycling, the GLA this month launched an updated greenhouse gas calculator for London boroughs to use to review their waste management activities.
The calculator – which was put together by a team at Eunomia – has been named the ‘ready reckoner’ and allows councils to project their performance against the GLA’s Emissions Performance Standard (EPS), which sets climate-related targets for waste.
The new tool means local authorities can model future activities and potential service changes, assessing which options have the biggest impact upon carbon emissions and movement towards the EPS targets.
Register for free to comment