Meacher urges councils to work with private sector

Speaking on Friday in Manchester at the launch of a new recycling initiative for the conurbation, Mr Meacher told local authority members present: “I hope that you will all grasp future opportunities to work closely with private sector interests, and to work closely with one another to learn best practice from each other.

Environment Minister Michael Meacher speaking in Manchester

“You can only do this job effectively with the private sector, and it is the public-private partnership which I think is so important.”

The minister also called for a change in the UK’s “chuck away” culture, and said that the government was determined to treble the recycling rate by 2005/06.

He noted that the recycling record of his Greater Manchester hosts was “extremely poor”, and stressed how well European cities have performed compared with their British counterparts.

But he denied that a lack of government funding was to blame.

Mr Meacher pointed out that the government last month allocated 140 million in extra funds to local authorities to boots recycling, although a number of Greater Manchester councils missed out, including Mr Meacher’s own constituency of Oldham.

“It’s not a problem for the government – it isn't. We've got to play our part, we are determined to play our part, but we can't solve this problem – either central or local government – without cooperation with partners,” Mr Meacher insisted.

The main reason for the minister's visit was the launch of the Race to Recycle campaign, by Shotton Paper and Greater Manchester Waste.

This project will see an award, equivalent to 1 for every tonne of the city's paper passing through Shotton's paper mills each year, going to the three most improved councils in the area.

Deprivation
Mr Meacher also spoke about the need to bring recycling to poorer communities.

“We've always seen recycling in the UK as a kind of middle-class activity, that is marginal to the interest and needs of the more deprived communities. I don't actually accept that at all,” he said.

“At the national level, we are working closely with those delivering the neighbourhood renewal agenda and lottery funding to make high quality environmental solutions essential to the state of our development.”

He added: “It is those who are poorest who often have the worst environment, they actually have the greatest incentive, given the opportunity, to improve it.”

Much could be earned from good practice, standards and culture in the rest of Europe to move the UK away from “the chuck-away society, the obsolescent society that we’ve had in the past,” he noted.

But Mr Meacher made it clear that the UK should not wait for European legislation to force an improvement in its recycling.

“I hope everyone in the country now knows that there is a requirement on every local authority to double its level of recycling within three years by 2003/04 – we’re nearly there – and to treble the rate of recycling within five years by 2005/06,” he said.

“Those are perfectly achievable targets and I tell you, the government is going to enforce them.”