A Friends of the Earth (FoE) report has this month revealed that the UK is currently throwing away over £650 million every year by dumping and incinerating waste which, if recycled, could save 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually - equivalent to taking around six million cars off the roads.
Research by the green campaign group has revealed that if material currently landfilled or incinerated was recycled, it would slash emissions, reduce the need to import materials from abroad and create new UK green jobs across the waste management industry. FoE is calling on the Government to ban the landfilling and incineration of recyclable material and to ensure that as much waste as possible from households and businesses is either reused or recycled.
FoE's Senior Resource Use Campaigner Dr. Michael Warhurst said, "The UK is woefully lagging behind much of Europe on recycling. Flanders in Belgium recycles over 70% of its waste - that's twice as much as we recycle here. Our low recycling rate means that we have to import more expensive resources like aluminium - this is economic madness when they could be recycled here and sold for profit instead. It's time we recognised the real value of the materials we throw away every day. We only have one Earth and its resources are finite - making better use of them would save money and help tackle climate change. The Government must scrap its plans for new incinerators and provide councils with the support they need to increase recycling instead. The money saved should then be reinvested in greening our economy."
The full FoE report, "Gone to waste: the valuable resources that European countries bury and burn" is available to download at www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/gone_to_waste.pdf.
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