A new report from Friends of the Earth has criticised the efforts by local authorities to provide kerbside collections for households.
The report, released last Friday, showed that only a quarter of English councils currently meet the demand of the Household Waste Recycling Act, passed in October last year.
The Act requires councils to offer doorstep recycling of at least two materials to every household in their area by 2010 (see letsrecycle.com legislation section).
FoE campaigner Georgina Bloomfield said: “A lot of the worst performing authorities are planning to introduce schemes, but government funding in this area needs to improve. There needs to be more leadership from government on the issue of doorstep recycling and more commitment from the authorities.”
Andy Bond, managing director of community recyclers ECT, said the report showed that English councils need to provide more services in order to reach recycling targets.
“This survey shows that if England is to improve its recycling record, then local government has to offer homes the chance to recycle more of their rubbish, more of the time,” he said.
Taylor develops new bin tagging microchip holder
Bin manufacturer Taylor has developed a new microchip holder to be used in data collection from household bins.
Bin tagging systems use a tag or chip enabling local authorities to monitor the amount of waste in each container. But because different bin-weigh technology companies use different shaped chips, it is difficult to design an effective holder to attach them to bins.
Worcestershire-based Taylor invested 50,000 in a research and development programme to design a universal chip holder to be fitted on its bins.
The result is TagSafe which can be fitted to Taylor's continental containers and will take the four main shapes of tagging chips available in the UK.
Bexley starts waste electronics recycling
The London borough of Bexley has started collecting household electrical goods for recycling.
Twenty Salvation Army mini-recycling banks will now accept items like toasters, kettles and hairdryers across the borough and larger household goods can be taken to the council's re-use and recycling centres.
Councillor Joel Briant, cabinet member for the environment said: “More and more electrical items are going into our rubbish bins every year, but it will soon be a legal requirement to recycle them. We want to make sure we provide easy-to-use facilities that will help our residents to do their bit.”
The Salvation Army will try to re-use the items collected in the mini-banks with the remainder going to European Metals Recycling for recycling. The scheme is part of research into the different ways to collect waste electrical equipment.
Cllr Briant said: “In partnership with Lewisham council we secured 24,500 funding from London Remade to research different ways to collect electronics waste and how it can be treated.”
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