Having bemoaned the horrors of blatant rubbish dumping in Cairo – a city where recycling is a dirty word and where pollution from the city centre dump and offensive smoke belching from factories and traffic fumes permeates every space – I was horrified to read how almost 10,000 tonnes of waste (the equivalent of 851 bin lorries worth) that should have been recycled in Yorkshire last year ended up on tips or being burned. Such headlines make
They also make us seriously question our commitment to attaining our share of EU recycling targets (50 per cent for municipal waste by 2020) which would save emissions equivalent to more than 89 million tonnes of CO2 per year – the equivalent to taking 31 million cars off the road. Campaigners are calling on the UK Government to support and implement these targets to realise our vision of a low-carbon economy. As two thirds of all household rubbish can be recycled, we can maximise facilites provided by retail “champions.”
