London one of most wasteful cities in Europe

The data, entitled “Municipal waste management in 27 European capital cities” was compiled by European resource network ACR+ on behalf of French utilities firm Suez Environnement. The organisation measured the amount of waste produced per head in the cities in 2007 and the treatment and disposal methods used.

The findings are part of wider research into existing legislation, policies and drivers for waste management across the continent, entitled ‘Municipal Waste in Europe: Towards a Recycling Society'.

The study was published in Belgium and France last month (September 30) and is set to be published in the UK in November 2009.

The figures show that London's 7.8 million residents produced, on average, 520kg of waste each a year, with 270kg going to landfill. This made it among the highest producers of waste per head of all those cities polled.

The only cities which produced more waste per head were Paris (550kg), Malta (620kg), Tallinn (648kg), Luxembourg (700kg) and Ljubljana (810kg). The cities which produced the least waste per head were Brussels (300kg), Berlin (400kg), Lisbon (400kg) and Copenhagen (420kg).

However, London did fare better than some European cities when it came to recycling, achieving a 22% recycling rate compared to 21% in Dublin, 19% in Paris and 10% in Lisbon. This was still somewhat lower than cities such as Berlin (39%) and Copenhagen (23.4%).

The study also showed that the UK as whole had lower waste collection costs than 14 other European countries – with it costing on average €51 (£47) to collect a tonne of residual waste, compared to €75 (£69) in Flanders, €85 (£78) in Luxembourg, €100 (£92) in the Netherlands and €126(£116) in Denmark.

Landfill

London reported that it landfilled 2,208,605 tonnes of the 4,153,657 tonnes of household waste produced in 2007 – equating to 52% of waste arisings being disposed of in this way.

This was considerably more than cities such as Berlin, which landfilled 23,000 tonnes, made up entirely of construction waste, and Vienna, which landfilled less than 30,000 tonnes of household waste. Sweden landfilled 0% of the 762,862 tonnes generated in 2007.

However, Rome reported to ACR+ that it landfilled 1,458,313 tonnes of waste in 2007, which was equivalent to 82.7% of waste arisings in the Italian capital.

London was also found to be a long way behind other European urban centres in its adoption of energy recovery technology to treat waste. London's 22% energy recovery rate was considerably lower than Brussels (84.1%), Budapest (95%), Copenhagen (73.5%), Lisbon (79%), Paris (64.5%) and Prague (62.89%).

The study also touched upon the use of alternate weekly collections in the UK and claimed that residents were “unenthusiastic” about their take-up, despite the practice being widely used in other Northern European countries. It also highlighted that southern European countries, such as Spain, Italy and France, tended to use multi-weekly or even daily collections.

Jean-Pierre Hannequart, president of ACR+, said: “Each member authority of the association has its own strategy, which articulates the common framework of the European directives but also places it in its own particular context based on country, region, urban characteristics and local economic and social issues.”

“This wide diversity does not prevent the existence of many common points of view on waste management policy: each town, city and region needs to develop a prevention strategy, apply similar legal concepts, organise selective collection, and make balanced choices between various treatment techniques,” he added.