What A Waste!

What a Waste! London households produce enough rubbish to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every hour Campaign launches to encourage Londoners to recycle more 2 September 2003: The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and Elliot Morley MP today launched 'Recycle for London', a new initiative aimed at encouraging Londoners to take action and start recycling more. The campaign launches with a dedicated website www.recycleforlondon.com <http://www.recycleforlondon.com> and helpline number, 0845 3 31 31 31, which will make it easy for Londoners to find out about recycling services specific to their boroughs, including information on recycling collections from homes. People often consider getting recyclable waste to the nearest recycling banks difficult, particularly if they don't have a car. Fifty seven per cent of Londoners have collections from home for recyclable materials but half of these people do not know the service exists. The campaign will also raise awareness of those materials that can be recycled. Most Londoners are familiar with the idea of recycling newspapers and wine bottles but do not realise they could easily recycle more: Paper: newspapers, magazines, junk mail, birthday & Christmas cards, wrapping paper Glass: wine & beer bottles, sauce & jam jars, olive oil and dressing bottles, medicine bottles cans: food tins, drinks cans, aerosol cans Londoners produce 3.4 million tonnes of waste each year: * Every Londoner throws away seven times their own weight in rubbish each year * London households produce enough rubbish to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool every hour * Rubbish in London could fill an area the size of the Canary Wharf tower every ten days Only 9% of Londoners' waste is currently recycled and government targets mean that this figure must increase to 25% by 2005. This means that Londoners who recycle a little are now being encouraged to recycle a lot more: junk mail as well as newspapers, glass jars as well as wine bottles, all white goods and old shoes and clothes. Graham Norton, comedian, commenting on the initiative: "Recycle for London is a fantastic campaign. It is really important that we all keep London as clean and pleasant as possible. I didn't realise that you could recycle so many things. I will definitively be making more effort to recycle from now on." London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said: "This campaign is essential to the future of all Londoners, and it is important that Londoners do recycle more. That includes recycling glass jars as well as bottles, food cans in addition to drink cans, unwanted clothes and linen, and to compost garden and kitchen waste. These are all simple actions that people can take which will make a big difference to improving the amount of waste London produces, and ultimately the environment we live in." Fern Britton, TV Presenter, supporting the campaign said: "I'm very interested in recycling and want to recycle and believe it's something everyone should do, but people need to know how to go about it. At last there's a central point where this information can be accessed. I'm sure this will make people's lives easier and we'll see more people doing their bit for recycling." The London Recycling Fund, set up by the Mayor, the Association of London Government and London Waste Action funded this campaign and is distributing a total of £24.9 million to London boroughs, specifically for projects that will improve services across the boroughs and make recycling easier for all Londoners. Ken Livingstone and Elliot Morley today also unveiled a work of art, commissioned by the GLA, for Londoners to enjoy. The artwork measures 6 ft 6inches (2 metres) high and 12 foot (3.7 metres) long and depicts the London skyline made up of recyclable materials with Londoners appearing in the foreground. The artwork will tour the capital and will appear first at the London design show, DesignersBlock from 25 to 28th September 2003. For further information on Recycle for London or to set up an interview regarding the campaign with Ken Livingstone or John Duffy, the Mayor's Policy Director for the Environment, please contact: MacLaurin Jo Hardacre - Tel: 020 7471 6845, mobile 07812 610 746 Email: rfl@maclaurin.com <mailto:rfl@maclaurin.com> Other Celebrity Supporters: James Nesbitt " We all want our children to live in a safe and clean environment, which is why the Recycle for London campaign is vital. It makes recycling become a way of life instead of a hassle...in fact our living room resembles a Blue Peter studio most of the time." Paul Nicholls "Everybody can do their bit for Recycle for London Campaign. It just means taking a few more minutes to recycle, rather than just throwing stuff away without thinking. Which results in a better and cleaner environment for London- which has got to be a good thing hasn't it?" Rose Gray, River Cafe " In the sixteen years of The River Cafe we are proud of the fact that we have an effective recycling policy into almost all areas of the restaurant." Recycling Statistics * The average London household produces a tonne of rubbish every year - that's the equivalent weight of a family car * * London's households produce enough waste to fill an Olympic swimming pool every hour+ * London's households produce enough rubbish to fill Canary Wharf tower every 10 days+ * Londoners produce 3.4 million tonnes of waste a year+ - this is equivalent to each person throwing away more than seven times their own weight in rubbish every year* * The largest landfill site in Greater London will be full in less than 5 years+ * Only one in five recycles anything other than paper and glass* * Two-thirds of households indicate they could do more recycling if provided with the right kind of help* * On average, every family in the UK uses around 330 glass bottles and jars each year - but we only recycle 30% of them¤ * Every UK citizen uses the equivalent of 240 steel cans a year § * If all the aluminium drinks cans recycled in the UK last year were laid end to end, they would stretch from John O'Groats to Land's End 140 times ¢ * Over 7.5 Billion articles of clothing end up in our dustbins every year meaning 75% of recyclable clothes are wasted* * About 38% of the paper consumed in the UK is recycled § * Producing recycled paper involves between 28 - 70% less energy consumption than virgin paper and uses less water § * For every tonne of paper recycled 17 trees are spared, 7000 gallons of water is saved and 4200 KWh less electricity is used § * 57% of Londoners have access to recycling collections from home - this means that their recycling is collected in a special bag, box or wheelie bin outside their door+ * The energy saved by recycling one bottle will power a computer for 25 minutes¤ * There are now over 50,000 bottle bank sites around the UK¤ * Producing steel from recycled steel saves 75% of the energy used to cans from virgin steel Þ Best/Worst Boroughs London Borough Recycling Rates 2001/02 Borough Recycling Rate Bexley 20.5 Sutton 18.7 Kingston Upon Thames 17.8 Richmond Upon Thames 17.3 Merton 16.5 Hillingdon 15.5 Croydon 15.4 Camden 14.5 Bromley 14.3 Corporation of London 12.6 Hounslow 12.5 Greenwich 11.5 Havering 11.3 Ealing 10.5 Harrow 10.3 Wandsworth 9.4 Lambeth 8.9 Westminster 8.7 Enfield 8.7 Kensington and Chelsea 8.57 Hammersmith and Fulham 8.5 Barnet 8.4 Redbridge 8.19 Waltham Forest 8.17 Brent 6.2 Islington 5.5 Lewisham 5.5 Haringey 4.6 Southwark 3.6 Tower Hamlets 2.8 Newham 2.6 Barking and Dagenham 2.1 Hackney 1.2 Notes to Editors 1. Elliot Morley MP is Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment 2. John Duffy is the Mayor's Policy Director for the Environment, working on the Mayor's strategies for Biodiversity, Waste, Energy and Noise. 3. The GLA is a unique form of strategic citywide government for London. It is made up of a directly elected Mayor - the Mayor of London <http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/mayor.jsp> - and a separately elected Assembly - the London Assembly <http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/assembly.jsp>.The Mayor is London's spokesman. He leads the preparation of statutory strategies on transport, spatial development, economic development and the environment. He sets budgets for the GLA, Transport for London, the London Development Agency, the Metropolitan Police and London's fire services. As Mayor, Ken Livingstone chairs Transport for London. The Assembly scrutinises the Mayor's activities, questioning the Mayor about his decisions. The Assembly is also able to investigate other issues of importance to Londoners, publish its findings and recommendations, and make proposals to the Mayor. 4. The Recycle for London campaign has been developed by the GLA in partnership with London's boroughs, Rethink Rubbish, the Association of London Government and The London Recycling Fund. 5. The London Recycling Fund was set up in 2002 by The Mayor, Association of London Government and London Waste Action. It is responsible for delivering £24.9million of government funding specifically for improving recycling in London. The fund has supported a total of 41 projects to date. It is designed to significantly boost recycling of household waste across London and to do this through encouraging Partnerships and private sector investment in the new systems needed if high levels of recycling are to be achieved by 2005 and beyond. The Fund is managed by London Waste Action. 6. In 2001/2 London recycled 9.3% of its household waste. 7. The research on household waste behaviour in London is available from the Resource Recovery Forum on 01756 709 808 * Source: Household Waste Behaviour in London, Commissioned by the Resource Recovery Forum and conducted by Brook Lyndhurst and MORI +Source: Greater London Authority § Source: www.wasteonline.org.uk <http://www.wasteonline.org.uk> ¤ Source: www.britglass.co.uk <http://www.britglass.co.uk> ¢ Source www.alupro.org.uk <http://www.alupro.org.uk> Þ Source: www.ollierecycles.com <http://www.ollierecycles.com> ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/09/02/20030902BIT00250/wkr0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/09/02/20030902BIT00250/wkr0002.pdf