Samantha Heath, chair of the Assembly’s environment committee, said the Mayor needed to improve his relationship with London boroughs and provide them with a clear direction on how to handle household waste more effectively to benefit the environment.
Giving evidence at a public examination of the Mayor’s draft London Plan, Ms Heath said: “London produces around 4 million tonnes of waste a year – more than Wales and Scotland put together – but our recycling figures are poor at the moment, and way below cities in Europe. We have to take responsibility for that, and we simply can’t carry on shipping our rubbish out to landfill sites in other regions.”
London currently recycles about 9% of the 4.4 million tonnes of household waste it produces each year, with about 20% incinerated and 71% going to landfill – 90% of which is disposed of outside London (see capitalwastefacts.com).
In her evidence Ms Heath reflected on the Mayor's green procurement plan (see letsrecycle.com story), as well as market development work being carried out by organisations like London Remade.
She said: “There is a big potential market in London for recycled products and our densely populated neighbourhoods make it easier to collect recycling materials than many other places. If we can reduce the amount of waste we produce and increase our performance in recycling and composting, we will be able to reduce the amount of residual waste and cut the amount sent to landfill without having to burn more.”
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