The London Environment Committee is going to investigate why there are such wide variations in household recycling rates amongst the capital’s 33 boroughs.

The investigation will examine the financial incentives used in each borough to promote recycling, the methods used to manage waste and London resident’s attitudes towards recycling.

In 2008/2009, London’s recycling rates were amongst the lowest in the UK with only 29% of waste being recycled or composted correctly. Its hoped that the investigation will help to improve recycling rates in the future and also help reveal the impediments to using waste as a resource.

According to figures from the Environment Department, the London borough of Newham got the lowest household recycling rate of just 15.4% in 2008/2009 whilst the best performing council was Bexley with a rate of 50.25%. According to the figures 4 other London boroughs got over 40% and nine more got over 30%.

Flats in London are to have rubbish chutes updated and rubbish collection points moved closer to doorways to encourage more people to correctly recycle waste, under new proposals by London Mayor, Boris Johnson.

The new plans are designed to reduce the amount of the capital’s waste going to landfill and help save money for councils and taxpayers.

In order to carry out these plans, Mr Johnson will urge the London Waste and Recycling Board to allocate funds to help adapt London’s flats.

The mayor of London has also published his waste strategy which includes writing to borough councils to help boost recycling rates. Apart from being good for the environment it’s hoped the new strategy will help avoid massive landfill taxes and more expensive council tax bills in the future.

London Mayor, Boris Johnson will outline plans today for a new scheme called Recycle Bank that will give householders shopping vouchers for recycling their waste.

The new scheme has already been successful in America and aims to cut down on the amount of waste that ends up at landfill. The London based trial of the scheme will reward householders with an estimated £14 of shopping vouchers a month although the actual amount will be based on how much waste each family recycles.

Recent figures found that only 25% of the 4 million tonnes of household waste generated in London every year is being recycled, this puts London’s recycling rates behind the average for the rest of the UK and other international capital cities.

The Co-operative has teamed up with Oxfam and the Stop Climate Chaos
Coalition, to get as many people as possible to march through the
streets of London on Saturday 5th December to keep the heat on the
government for definite action on climate change.

The peaceful march called ‘The Wave’ will take place just before the
UN climate change talks in Copenhagen, where world governments will
sort out a new deal on how to tackle climate change in the future.

‘The Wave’ will call on world leaders to secure a fair and safe deal
to stop global warming exceeding the danger threshold of 2 degrees C
and for a low carbon future for both the UK and the World.

It’s hoped that around 50,000 to 100,000 people will turn up for the
march, making this the biggest climate change march in history. Anyone
taking part in the ‘The Wave’ is asked to wear blue clothing and bring
blue banners in order to create a human wave.

For more information and to book your place visit The Wave.

In a recent study carried out by Suez Environment it has been found that 52% of rubbish that is dumped in London is ending up at landfill. This makes London the biggest dumper of rubbish out of all capital cities in Europe.

According to the report the average Londoner is dumping a massive 520kg of waste every year. Only 22% of waste in London is actually being recycled correctly.

Under new laws due to be introduced next year, local councils will be fined if they are found to be dumping to much waste at landfill. These fines will be £48 per tonne of landfill.

The greener capital cities in the report included Copenhagen who is throwing away 20% less rubbish than London which amounts to 420kg per person per year.

If more waste was sent to recycling plants rather than landfill the figures suggest that up to 40,000 extra jobs in London could be created.