UK suffers recycling slump
Wednesday, December 21, 2016 - 13:19:54
The latest report from Defra shows that the percentage of household waste which was recycled last year was actually lower than in 2014, representing a real setback in the efforts to boost the sustainability of the country as a whole, according to BBC News.
Forty four point three per cent of the waste produced by homes across the UK was recycled in 2015, compared with 44.9 per cent in the previous year. And while the national monitoring of recycling rates only began back in 2010, it is a far from ideal state of affairs.
At the moment there is an EU-wide goal of recycling a minimum of 50 per cent of all household waste by the end of the decade, although it seems unlikely that the UK will be able to hit this target.
Of course some parts of the country are making more of an impact than others, with Wales still leading the way. In 2015 it managed to boost its recycling rates to 55.8 per cent, up from 54.8 per cent in 2014.
Scotland has also seen a rise, hitting 42 per cent last year, although still lagging behind England where rates sat at 43.9 per cent.
Environmental campaigners argue that it makes sense to impose a tax on products which are made from materials which cannot currently be recycled. This would mean that the price paid by consumers for less sustainable goods would increase relative to their more eco-friendly counterparts.
The money raised by this scheme would also help to expand the options available for household recycling collection, meaning that people would have an even easier time disposing of recyclable materials at home.
Industry insiders also complained of the fact that people were too willing to throw away recyclable materials which were contaminated with food waste and other substances, meaning that recycling facilities would often reject them rather than processing them.
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