You are here:

Rethinking our approach to waste

Row of coloured recycling binsFrom today, a new campaign will encourage us all to rethink our approach to waste. 

Can we reduce the amount we use in the first place? Can we reuse what we have already and finally, can it be recycled?

Part of the Government’s ‘Act On CO2’ campaign, called ‘Remember. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.’, will be encouraging us to consider everything from food waste to furniture recycling.  The website offers tips and advice on making better use of the things we all too often put straight in the bin or take to the dump.

Research published recently by Defra showed that an additional 500,000 tonnes of household waste could be saved from landfill by doing more to reuse it or find another home for it.  And, if every household in the EU recycled one electrical or electronic item such as a mobile phone or iPod, then 73,000 tonnes of waste could be diverted from landfill – or over 65,000 tonnes of CO2. That's the same as 9,500 round-the-world flights!

The campaign and other measures were announced by Environment Secretary Hilary Benn at a recent summit with local authorities and the waste industry. 

Launching the campaign, Mr Benn said:

‘I set out recently what the Government will do to help the country on its path to becoming a zero waste nation.  Making better use of everything around us will really help us to tackle the impact what we do with waste has on climate change, and save us money too.  That’s why our campaign is encouraging everyone to rethink what they might think of as ‘waste’ and ‘recycling’ – we can all do things like put our old sofa on Freecycle rather than taking it to the dump, or recycling our old mobile if we get a new one.’

Further information

 

Page last modified: 29 October 2009
Page published: 29 October 2009