Mayor Boris pledges to cut London landfill waste to zero
2010-01-19 from:BusinessGreen author:Cath Everett
Waste strategy promises improved recycling services and increased investment in waste-to-energy systems
London mayor Boris Johnson has today outlined plans to turn the capital into a zero-waste-to-landfill city by 2025 as part of an initiative designed to push household recycling and composting rates to 60 per cent by 2031.
The scheme is set out in the Mayor's Office's Draft Municipal Waste Management Strategy: London's Wasted Resource report, which predicts that reducing waste levels and increasing recycling could slash London's greenhouse gas emissions by two million tonnes of CO2 equivalent each year.
According to the report, the rubbish that London currently sends to landfill generates about 520,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Meanwhile, cuts in carbon emissions of 1.5 million tonnes a year could be delivered by reducing the use of virgin materials in unnecessary packaging and replacing existing energy generation with waste-to-energy plants.
The document, which has been put out to public consultation until 15 March, indicated that London's boroughs currently recycle on average only 25 per cent of their waste – the lowest rate in England. The city also compares badly with other large cities, with Berlin boasting a recycling rate of 41 per cent and New York recycling 34 per cent of its waste.
Some of London's boroughs are taking pioneering strides forward to boost their recycling rates. However, overall in London we are really lagging behind, said Johnson. "It is not only detrimental to our environment, but economically a backwards step to be sending our rubbish to landfill and I am writing to all the borough leaders to urge them to pull out the stops to boost our recycling efforts," he said.
The Mayor's Office said the cost to London of managing its rubbish is about £600m a year, adding that the new strategy would help cut costs by about £90m.
Johnson's strategy calls for the rollout of new easy-to-access waste collection, recycling and composting services, particularly for people living in flats, who currently account for about half the city's housing stock but recycle only about 10 per cent of their waste.
He said that London boroughs should "seek to unblock the remaining barriers to recycling, making it easier to take this option rather than simply chuck unwanted stuff in the bin, for example, providing better collection facilities in flats and multi-occupancy dwellings".
Johnson also signalled his support for the trial of a recycling rewards scheme, such as the Recycle Bank initiative which offers households shopping vouchers based on how much they recycle and has proved highly effective in the US.
In addition, the new strategy calls for the wider introduction of new waste-to-energy systems, such as anaerobic digestion, gasification and pyrolysis technologies, adding that planning has already been approved for London's first gasification plant.
Other recommendations include closer links with London-based businesses and manufacturers to encourage smarter purchasing policies and reductions in the amount of unnecessary packaging that is produced.