Tues 9 July: "Create Solutions - Design Waste out of Our Bins!"

Link to web site

"A creative, constructive workshop to redesign the products voted as the things that most drive us nuts in the People's Design Lab Awards.

"No design expertise needed - you just need to care about waste.

"The workshop will bring together people who care with designers, people who know the ins and outs of impacts and product manufacturers. We'll be unpicking the reasons behind current designs and giving them a 'zero waste' makeover." 

"Let’s design waste out of our bins! Join us at The People’s Design Lab’s first workshop on 9th July at Cranfield University, where we’ll be bringing together people who understand design and us folk who just care about waste. Meet Karen Cannard of The Rubbish Diet and Ugo Vallauri of Restart as we create new solutions!

"Over 130 products that you can’t recycle, re-use or repair were nominated for a People’s Design Lab Award. 1000 votes later and we have our Award Winners. Now the real fun starts as we redesign inkjet printers, two types of packaging and electronic chargers." 

"Ten firefighters hurt in blaze at Smethwick recycling plant"

Link to Evening Standard

"Ten firefighters have been injured tackling a blaze involving 100,000 tonnes of plastic recycling material in the West Midlands.

"The fire service said 200 firefighters were at the scene in Smethwick.

"A plume of smoke was today rising 6,000ft into the air from the fire at the Jayplas depot in Dartmouth Road."

RSA: "What is the Great Recovery - Redesigning the Future?"

Link to web site

"The current economic and environmental challenges of

Take,           

Make,

            Dispose

manufacturing are becoming apparent.

"Increasing supply risk and rising costs of materials is putting pressure on businesses to change. We need to shift towards more circular systems, and good design thinking is pivitol [sic. 'pivotal'] to this transition.

"The Great Recovery is building new networks to explore the issues, investigate innovation gaps, and incubate new partnerships."

Link to web site

"The Great Recovery Report: Investigating the role of design in the circular economy"

"The Great Recovery project, launched in September 2012 by the Action and Research Centre at the RSA, aims to build a cross-disciplinary design community that is equipped to support the development of an economy based on resource-efficient principles.

"This report covers the first six months of the Great Recovery project, including the circular network, workshops, and teardown observations.

"Through this we have gained a better understanding of what action and research is required to transform the way society manages resources. This report outlines a series of key recommendations, based on the findings of the first phase of The Great Recovery programme."

Vancouver Observer: "Trashed: documentary shines light on global waste crisis"

Link to 'Trashed' web site

"Killer whales so contaminated that they were classified as toxic waste. A once-beautiful Lebanese beach that’s now a towering mound of garbage, bleeding contaminants into the Mediterranean Sea. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area the size of Quebec that has six times as much plastic as zooplankton, the foundation of the food chain.

"We all know that trash is a serious environmental problem, but it’s hard to grasp the full extent of the global predicament. And even if you are well-informed, it’s good to be reminded that waste is, in the eyes of the creators of Trashed, the most dire environmental crisis today. British documentary Trashed tells the story of the world’s waste disposal problems through the eyes of Jeremy Irons. The actor-turned-environmental activist takes the audience around the world, showing first some of the most gory garbage patches, before presenting the challenges of getting rid of such trash.

Incinerators: a burning problem

"Incinerators might seem like a neat way to vaporize the problem, but they’re far from a panacea. The ash from burnt garbage is even more toxic than the garbage itself, and even the most efficient incinerators can’t hold back all of it. Irons visits towns in England and France that have high cancer rates that locals blame on neighbouring landfills and incinerators. To show just how bad it can get, he visits Vietnamese children with birth defects caused by ‘Agent Orange,’ a wartime chemical weapon that contains the same dioxins belched out by incinerators. 

"Irons takes us to seemingly idyllic Iceland, where a farmer has to cull all of his livestock because the toxins from the nearby incinerator have contaminated his fields. And that’s from a modern, expensive incinerator that has repeatedly installed the latest and greatest filtration systems.

"Metro Vancouver is planning to build a new incinerator, and Zero Waste BC, the host of Monday’s screening of Trashed, is campaigning the stop it. The project is already taking bids for its construction, but the activists are optimistic because there hasn’t been a new incinerator built in North America since 1997. The project, touted as a waste-to-energy facility, will be a power source, but Zero Waste BC is concerned about its noxious emissions.

Trying to solve the problem

"The documentary isn’t all doom and gloom. Towards the end of the film Irons presents some positive steps groups and individuals are taking. Of course there’s the reduce-reuse-recycle motif, but it’s interesting to learn the extent that it can make a difference, and how recycling can even make sense economically.

"For example, the American recycling rate is only 33%, while San Francisco has managed to achieve a rate of 75% (the filmmakers state that we should be able to recycle a full 90%). If the whole country recycled 75% of their trash, 1.5 million jobs would be created to manage it, and money would be saved by making production processes more efficient.

"Irons also visited a grocery store that uses no packaging, so people bring their own Tupperware and bags. He visited a facility that turns food waste into fertilizer, thus taking composting to the next level. The nice thing about waste reduction is it’s a cause that’s easy to make a difference in.

"The film told me that 58 billion disposable cups are thrown away each year, and I cringed, thinking of the coffee cup I had thrown out that morning. So this morning I brought my own thermos to work, determined that the movie’s message would not be wasted on me."

Vancouver Observer

BBC: "London landfill waste to be burnt near Bristol"

Link to web site

"Landfill waste from six west London boroughs could be burnt near Bristol by the end of 2016.

"Sita UK will build an incinerator at Severnside in the autumn with money from a 25-year contract to burn 300,000 tonnes of London waste a year.

"... The waste will come from Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond upon Thames."

Let's Recycle: "SITA confirmed for £900m West London contract"

Link to web site

"SITA UK has been formally named as the preferred bidder for the £900 million, 25-year residual waste treatment contract for the West London Waste Authority (WLWA).

"... The contract covers all aspects of treatment including any necessary transport, the operation of transfer stations, and contracts for outputs such as energy and refuse-derived fuel for the West London boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames. It will involve handling up to 300,000 tonnes of waste from households per year.

"SITA will take over the operation of two rail-linked waste transfer stations in West London, via which waste collected from more than 1.4 million residents in the boroughs will be transported by rail to a new energy from waste (EfW) facility in Severnside, South Gloucestershire."

Evening Standard: "French-owned Sita UK poised to land £900m waste deal"

Link to web site

"French-owned utility firm Sita UK is set to take over the disposal of rubbish in west London, in a £900 million scheme that will mean 300,000 tonnes of trash a year are no longer sent to landfill.

"Sita UK, part of Suez Environnement, is leading a consortium that plans to collect the waste from six boroughs and burn it in a new purpose-built electricity plant in Gloucestershire.

"The six councils — Richmond-upon-Thames, Ealing, Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow — are responsible for collecting rubbish from 1.4 million people, living in 600,000 households.

"At present, the boroughs send waste that cannot be recycled to four landfill sites in Abingdon, Bicester, Calvert and Bletchley."

Independent on Sunday: "UK incinerator plans? They're just rubbish"

Link to web site

"A wave of new publicly-funded incinerators being built to burn rubbish could be mothballed before they are even turned on, amid claims there will not be enough waste to fuel them.

"The Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has begun withdrawing funding for new incineration plants, with predictions there will be nothing for them to burn. Support for a scheme in Liverpool was withdrawn last month, following the removal of funding for projects in North and West Yorkshire.

"The UK already has 32 rubbish incinerators, but plans for 100 new ones are in the planning stages with local authorities around the country. The rush to build the new plants is rooted in the idea that they can be a cheaper alternative to sending rubbish to landfill, while creating renewable energy at the same time."

West London Waste Authority: Procurement effort falls apart!

TATA and E-ON abandon West London waste contract

"CHAIN has been officially informed that TATA and E-ON have withdrawn from the tendering process for the West London Waste Authority (WLWA) waste contract, and did not submit a final bid before the deadline that expired on 28 February 2013. Consequently, the sole remaining bid is from SITA UK Limited. Had TATA and E-ON been successful, they intended to transport 300,000 tonnes per annum of municipal waste a distance 200 miles from London to Lostock, a residential part of Northwich, for incineration.

"In a letter from their solicitors, both companies indicate that they will seek other waste contracts to fuel the incinerator.  CHAIN is currently challenging the Government decision to grant planning permission for the Northwich incinerator by way of a judicial review that is scheduled to be heard on 1 May in the High Court at Manchester.

"Brian Cartwright, CHAIN Chairman, stated:

“We must give a guarded welcome to this decision because it was always irresponsible nonsense to be seriously contemplating sending Londoners’ rubbish halfway up the country to Cheshire to be incinerated. You will not be surprised to hear that CHAIN and many of our supporters, including members of Cheshire West and Chester Council, have been in contact with the Board of the WLWA on many occasions and pointed this out to them.

We are concerned that TATA and E-ON say that they intend to seek other contracts to supply waste to feed the monster they want to build, practically in the centre of Northwich. It is to be hoped that they will pause before they do so, and review the whole basis of their project. I have in mind, for example, the recent research report by independent experts that there will be 6.9 million tonnes excess treatment capacity, which includes incineration, in the UK by 2015/16. Quite simply, there will not be near enough waste to go round.

Here in the North West, with huge new plants going up in Runcorn and near Frodsham, the situation will be even worse. There are real risks that people will be deterred from recycling and incinerator operators would have to import garbage from across Europe for burning, which would be utter insanity.

CHAIN and the people of Northwich have been fighting together against an incinerator in the town for over five years and we are determined to stay in the fight for as long as it takes. We are very hopeful that our legal challenge will succeed, although we are still seeking financial support from the public which would improve our prospects. There is also the distinct possibility that municipalities and local councils in the UK who may be seeking ways of treating their waste will see the injustice and folly of sending it to what is a highly populated residential part of a small town in Cheshire for burning. No waste, no waste incinerator.”

MRW: "Incinerator plan 'would breach law', report says"

Link to MRW web site

"A campaign group and council are locked in a war of words over claims that the case for an incinerator is unsound.

"Pressure group Glosvain is opposed to plans for the Javelin Park incinerator, near Gloucester, which Gloucestershire County Council’s intends to develop with Urbaser Balfour Beatty.

"Glosvain commissioned Rebecca Colley-Jones, of consultant Ynys Resources, who is also chair of the Chartered Institution of Waste Management in Wales, to carry out an independent investigation of the council’s case.

"She concluded that the incinerator would not comply with EU and UK law, that the council had seriously over-estimated future waste requirements and that the economic case for the installation had collapsed following the end of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS).

"Colley-Jones said the proposed incinerator would be so inefficient that it must be classified not as recovery but disposal, at the bottom of the waste hierarchy."

WLWA announces procurement timetable

"The West London Waste Authority (WLWA) has short-listed two bidders for the long-term West London Residual Waste Services contract covering the boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, and Richmond upon Thames.

"Two bidders:

• a consortium of E.ON Energy from Waste AG with Tata Chemicals Europe Limited, and 
• SITA UK Limited

are in the final stage of the competitive dialogue process.

"Final tenders are to be submitted by 28 February 2013. WLWA expects to be in a position to select its preferred bidder in April 2013 to enable the new services to start in April 2015, but WLWA is exploring with bidders the opportunity for an earlier start to begin diversion from landfill as soon as possible.

"The contract involves handling up to 300,000 tonnes of residual waste per year generated by a population of 1.4 million people, and covers all aspects of treatment including any necessary transport, the operation of transfer stations, and contracts for outputs such as energy, refuse-derived fuel, and recyclates.

"Bids were invited from 'single entity' companies, consortia, or joint ventures and WLWA offered its three waste transfer stations at Brentford, South Ruislip and Park Royal as part of the procurement but also welcomed proposals involving sites within bidders’ control or which they intend to acquire.

"West London already recycles or composts almost 40% of its household waste, more than any other sub region of London. The new contract will allow continued flexibility to increase recycling up to at least 50% by 2020 and WLWA will focus even more on waste minimisation schemes in the future."

28 February 
Final Tenders Submitted

28 February to 5 April 
Evaluation of Final Tenders

12 April 
Project Board Meeting

26 April 
Authority Meeting

29 April 2013 
Announcement of Preferred Bidder

"So far as the Authority’s Residual Waste Procurement is concerned, we are fortunate in that we have come to the market somewhat later than many other authorities. As a consequence we have been able to review similar previous procurements. This has permitted us to adopt the best practice principles that the more successful of these other procurements have identified.

"In addition, the Authority is utilising the WIDP-developed contractual documentation as the basis of the procurement. WIDP is by the Waste Infrastructure Delivery Programmes, which is a specialist department within DEFRA.

"This documentation has been developed from the experience gained on a number of large waste procurements. Additionally, the documentation has benefited from the input of HM Treasury on financial issues. This documentation is seen as a benchmark for well-managed procurements.

"Finally, the procurement process has also benefited from the experience of a WIDP transactor (a professional with experience upon a number of previous similar procurements) advising us. And of course, we also have a number of specialist consultants advising on legal, financial and technical issues.

"... The WLWA can confirm that the Authority has modelled various waste growth/reduction scenarios. These provided the basis upon which the waste arisings contained within the bidding process were calculated. All scenarios were based upon recycling achieving a level of 50% across the Authority area."

"Row ignites as rubbish mounts"

Link to story in Uxbridge Gazette


"A PLAN that could send 300,000 tonnes of rubbish a year from London boroughs including Hillingdon to Cheshire for burning has sparked outrage.

"The West London Waste Authority (WLWA) has put out to tender a contract to treat waste, which cannot be recycled, from its member boroughs: Hillingdon, Ealing, Harrow, Brent, Hounslow and Richmond.

"One of the bids is a joint venture between Tata Chemicals Europe and E.ON Energy, under which an incinerator about the size of Wembley Stadium would be built close to the town of Northwich."

Link to opposition group web site

LocalGov: "Recycling: A very expensive backward step"

Link to web site

"Next week’s Judicial Review in Cardiff could spell the end for commingled dry recycling collections in England and Wales. That would be a very expensive and unnecessary backward step.

"If, at the end of the three day hearing on 28th February, Mr Justice Barton supports the action brought by the Campaign for Real Recycling (CRR), then hundreds of local authorities could collectively shudder at the thought of spending millions to change their commingled recycling collections to some form of kerbside-sort."

South Wales Argus: "Could Newport pull out of South Wales waste scheme?"

Link to web site

"Newport council is due next Tuesday to approve a business case for Prosiect Gwyrdd, which will see non-recyclable rubbish burned in a Cardiff incineration plant.

"But one councillor in the ruling group, who did not want to be named, says the multi-million pound scheme has huge implications for Newport, which will be tied into a contract for a quarter of a century. 

"The councillor said:

"The length of the contract is an issue. We are being asked to look at a contract that is going to affect not just our children, but our children's children.

The amount of waste that would be feeding the incinerator has been in decline."

Friends of the Earth: "Make It Better"

Link to Friends of the Earth

"The Make It Better campaign is all about improving the way that our products are made.

"We should all think about the impact the things we buy have on the world. But it should be up to the companies that make them to ensure they don't hurt people and the environment.

"With Make It Better we're calling for tough new rules to make companies come clean about the full impact of their production. This would be a huge step towards reducing the dangerous strain being placed upon our planet.

"We also want to celebrate the positive steps companies are taking, and how innovative design can reduce the environmental impact of our favourite items.

"We'd love you to join in, starting with one of today's most popular products: the smartphone. ..."

"What a waste: Eric Pickles slams council's £3.8bn contract." (Wait a minute, isn't the West London Waste Authority...)

Link to Manchester Evening News

"Communites secretary Eric Pickles has attacked Manchester council for its part in a £3.8bn contract to manage the city’s waste.

The Tory cabinet minister claimed the 25-year deal between Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority and Viridor Laing was signed off at double the market rate.

Speaking at the New Local Government Annual Conference, Mr Pickles claimed ratepayers were being hit in the pocket by the ‘shoddy deal’ and said:

"In Manchester, their council tax this year is being forced up by a botched PFI deal signed by the unelected waste authority, a 25-year deal which means they are paying double the market rates to dispose of their residual waste. A shoddy deal by a shadowy, unelected body, with no-one taking responsibility, and local taxpayers left with service cuts and higher taxes."

The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

Source: "Green Thing":

"This is one the most heart-warming and inspiring videos we’ve seen this year. Or last year.

"It is the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra - a group of very talented kids from a slum in Paraguay, playing instruments made from rubbish dug from the landfill that they live on.

"You have to watch to see just how incredible these musical instruments and musical teenagers are. But prepare to be amazed at how beautiful the music sounds.

"If you want to donate to help get the film about these amazing children made, then click here."

Evening Standard: "Councils are ignoring the Government by threatening to fine residents £1,000 if they don't recycle."

Link to Daily Telegraph

"Martin Hunt, Colchester Borough Council's waste boss, has applied for new powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The legislation allows him to order dust carts not to pick up rubbish from serial offenders' homes. He said:

"People are being put off recycling because they can see other people getting away with not doing it.

People are saying: 'why should I bother with recycling when my neighbour is putting 12 black sacks out?'

They feel they are paying for someone else not doing what they could be doing, but by me having these powers, it could put a stop to that."

Sat 5 and Fri 11 Jan are "Give Days". Sun 13 Jan is "Take Day"

Link to web site

"Stuff for Free is a giant community reuse event – helping redistribute good quality stuff to a new home where it will be valued. 

"This weekend it’s brought to you by Healthy Planet and West London Waste Authority to encourage reuse and reduce landfill so you’ll be helping the environment and helping yourself."

Give Days:
Saturday 5th January 2013, from 10am – 2pm,
Friday 11th January, from 8am – 2pm.

The Take Day:
when you can get useful items for free is Sunday 13th January.

Location:
The Vision, Warehouse 15, Kendal Avenue, Acton, W3 0AF

Warehouse 15 is in the section near the mini roundabout by the John Lewis depot. Parking is available, please make sure you park sensibly and do not block in other vehicles or block the exit.  (More details)

Overpackaging: The alternative

"It sells everything you could ever need for a great meal.
There's only one catch – 
it won't give you anything to take it all home in."
Link to The Independent

"If you ever find yourself eyeing the kitchen bin guiltily, with its vast mound of plastic packets, cardboard containers and wrappers, you might be interested to know there's a whole movement that aims to go one better than even recycling: precycling, or cutting out packaging in the first place.

"Among those at the forefront of this consumer revolution is Unpackaged, a first-of-its-kind shop that eschews all packaging and invites customers to bring in their own containers and Tupperware to stock up on essentials such as flour, cereals, nuts, pasta, rice, lentils and so on. Bring bottles for oils, apple juice, wine and even gin. Simply weigh your container when you arrive so it can be deducted from the overall weight and then get filling. 

"Not only will you save money but by foregoing packaging you'll reduce the amount of material waste being either sent to landfills or incinerated."

Why Packaging?

"It’s hard to visit a landfill site without being struck by the craziness of taking very valuable minerals and resources out of the ground, using a lot of energy, turning them into short-life products and then just dumping them back into the ground. It’s an absolutely monumental waste of energy and resources. As someone from the fashion industry might say, its just so last century."

(Michael Pawlyn, The Guardian, November 21 2005)

The Problem with Packaging

Whilst some packaging is necessary in our modern industrialised food chain, unnecessary packaging is a waste:  

• Cost: It increases the price of the goods you buy. You are charged twice – first when you buy overpackaged products and then through council tax for disposing of your rubbish.
• Waste: It wastes resources at every level: production, storage, transport and disposal.
• Pollution: Landfill and incineration are the two main ways of dealing with un-recyclable packaging waste. These are major pollutants for people and the environment as they release greenhouse gases.

"What about recycling? While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is difficult and impossible to recycle. Recycling is certainly part of the solution, but it will only work if we use less packaging and adopt more ‘reusable’ ways of doing things – Unpackaged is based on this ethos. Remember:

• Reduce by only buying what you need
• Reuse by bringing your containers for a refill
• Recycle what you can’t reuse.

"And… if you can’t reuse or recycle it, then don’t buy it!"

New Year, New North London Waste Plan

"Work on developing a new North London Waste Plan is scheduled to start in the New Year after a planning inspector ruled the existing document was unsuitable.

"The new North London Waste Plan (NLWP) will be drawn up by Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest Councils.

"It will set out how much waste the seven boroughs need to process, explain how planning applications for waste facilities in the boroughs will be decided and identify enough sites for waste management.

"A spokesperson for the NLWP, said:

“We have listened to the decision of the planning inspector and while we are disappointed with his decision, we believe the most appropriate way forward is to not adopt the current plan and start work on a new one as early as possible in the New Year.

We need to deal with more of our own rubbish and we’re determined to produce a plan that meets the needs of North London and identifies how the waste management facilities we need can be provided.

We’ll take the information we gathered in producing the original plan and use that as the basis for the new version, while taking into account the comments made by the planning inspector, so the work we’ve done to date will not be wasted. It's worth bearing in mind that the original plan was produced before the duty to co-operate was introduced.”

"Planning Inspector Andrew Mead was appointed to examine the NLWP but on the first day of the hearing in June he only heard evidence over whether the seven boroughs had failed to comply with the new Duty to Co-operate with local authorities who receive waste for landfill from North London.

"In August the Inspector decided the NLWP was not legally compliant because it did not meet the duty to co-operate and as result the examination into the soundness of the plan could not continue.

"To formally end the examination of the old NLWP the boroughs will now ask the Inspector to write his report which will recommend that the plan is not adopted and to start on a new version of the plan.

"This will formally call a halt to the old plan and enable work to start on the new plan.

"The boroughs will be writing to partners in the New Year to tell them about the new plan and how they can get involved.

Greens: London Councils Guilty of 'Greenwash'

Link to businessGreen

" 'Lambeth recycling rate soars!' screamed the headline on Lambeth's website. But the figures unraveled further down the page. The council explained the surge in recycling came from a switch from sending waste to landfill to sending compostoble or recyclable waste to an 'energy from waste (EfW)' plant in Bexley, rather than a recycling plant.

"The council had also counted bottom ash from the incinerator and other debris that is being used for road building as recycled waste, providing a boost to its recycling rates.

"Wandsworth, a borough of the Western Riverside Waste Authority and user of the Bexley EfW plant for 'residual waste' provided the same explanation for its imrpved recycling figures. Significantly, Wandsworth has revised its recycling figure from 45.9 to 43.8 per cent in the last few days on its council webpage.

"I really don't think it is right for councils to publish inflated recycling figures on their websites, and presumably in its literature to residents, when in fact it does not reflect official data.

The Independent: "A lesson in packaging myths: Is shrink-wrap on a cucumber really mindless waste?"

Link to web site

"It's easy to picture the 10 million tonnes of packaging we get through in Britain each year as a towering, dirty mountain of pollution and doom. Or, if it's more useful, imagine the equivalent weight of 35 jumbo jets a day or a quarter of the contents of your bins.

"However you do the maths, packaging is bad news for the planet, and as Christmas consumption reaches a peak, those mountains, planes and bins only look dirtier.

"But packaging is not necessarily evil, as veterans of the industry point out in a new book. In Why Shrink-wrap a Cucumber? The Complete Guide to Environmental Packaging, Stephen Aldridge and Laurel Miller unpack various myths to show how, done well, packaging can please the planet as much as it can producers, retailers and consumers."

Resource: "London authorities tender textile recycling banks"

Link to web site

"Lewisham Council is leading a procurement process for a single-provider framework to ‘significantly and cost-effectively’ increase the amount of textiles collected for reuse and recycling at several London council bring sites.

The London initiative, led by Lewisham and including the boroughs of Hounslow, Ealing, Harrow, Barnet, Sutton and Camden, was set up in response to a recently published WRAP report, ‘Valuing our Clothes’, which found that textiles – most of which are recyclable – make up three per cent of household waste per year. The report also found that in the UK over 30 per cent of clothing is still being discarded at costly landfill sites.

"Councils resort to burning millions of tons of household rubbish as amount recycled by families stalls"

Link to Daily Mail web site

"Millions of tons of household rubbish was burned instead of recycled by councils last year, new figures revealed yesterday.

"The amount sent to incinerators shot up by almost a quarter - while the amount sent for recycling went up by barely a single percentage point.

"The burning boom means millions of families who have been forced to cope with fortnightly collections, rubbish rationing and wheelie bin fines in the name of saving the environment now have to live with the pollution risks of incinerators.

"A report from the Environment Department admitted the amount of rubbish being recycled by town halls is ‘levelling off’ and that the amount of rubbish kept out of landfill is still far short of targets set by the European Union."