Morley backs recycling push

Monday, 18 October 2004 12:00 AM

The Environment Minister Eliot Morley has given his full support to a new campaign to promote recycling.

The "BIG recycle" campaign, run by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) is being launched today, with the aim of encouraging the public to recycle more often. WRAP is a not-for-profit organisation backed by Government funding.

Research for the campaign indicates that awareness of recycling is high - with 90 per cent of people knowing that cans are able to be recycled, but action is lower, with only 50 per cent saying they have ever done so.

Despite the perception that the young are the most environmentally concerned group, 14-24 year olds recycled the least out of the groups questioned.

Mr Morley said: "We are at the cusp of a recycling revolution. We know what we can recycle, we know how we can recycle - now it is time to recycle that recycling awareness into recycling action.

"There is a growing list of materials you can recycle either through kerbside collection schemes or recycling collection points from junk mail to plastic milk containers to drink cans. However, recycling isn't just confined to what you can drop off in your recycling bins: many community based organisations are raising vital funds by recycling more unusual goods like old mobile phones, books, computers and spectacles. So much of the waste we generate could be reused, recycled and transformed from a problem into an asset".

The Government aims to ensure that 25 per cent of all household waste is either composted or recycled by 2005/6, but the latest figures indicate that this is currently running at 14.5 per cent.

Friends of the Earth are calling on the Government to make "radical policy changes" to increase the levels of recycling. It wants higher targets, a tax on waste that is not recycled or composted and comprehensive doorstep recycling and composting collection services for every household.

It stresses that levels of reuse in the UK are behind many European countries. Campaigner Georgina Bloomfield, said: "The Government must show its commitment to expanding the amount of waste we recycle by increasing its funding to ensure that every household has access to comprehensive doorstep recycling services. Wider economic measures must also be put in place so that we can reach the standards set by our European neighbours who are already recycling over half of their domestic waste."

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