Schedule 5
Climate Change Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Gregory Barker (Shadow Minister, Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
My right hon. Friend has been delayed in the main Chamber, but this is an issue that he feels strongly about. I am sure that he would want some discussion of it in the Committee.
There is little doubt outside the Committee that waste is an issue that always seizes the public interest—my constituents certainly talk about it. Locally, there is still concern about the regularity of collections, about what one can and cannot put in the recycling bin and about the ever-increasing amount of waste that our homes seem to produce. Overall, I am always struck by how genuinely enthusiastic most people are about recycling. People like to do it. Parents enjoy showing their children what they can put in the compost, the recycling bin and the waste bin. There is a certain generation that never lost the recycling habit, having grown up in the thrifty post-war years. It makes people feel that they can do something tangible and practical to lead towards a greener lifestyle. They feel that recycling is an inherently good thing, leaving aside the climate change agenda.
The enthusiasm for recycling is something that we must encourage and nurture in every way we can. We must help people to do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do. Additionally, as the Minister has said, we still send far too much waste to landfill. The UK currently produces 28 million tonnes of municipal waste every year, a whopping 83 per cent. of which ends up in landfill. We signed up to the EU landfill directive to try to get that figure down, and it sets targets for the reduction of biodegradable waste sent to landfill. We must achieve 75 per cent. of the 1995 level by 2010, 50 per cent. of that level by 2013 and 35 per cent. of it by 2020. We have some considerable work yet to do in this country, which is why we need a clear collaboration between Government, local government and the public.
In that spirit, I welcome the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border. His proposals go right to the heart of many of the issues that my constituents find most frustrating about waste. They say that they want to recycle as much as they can, but not if it means that their residual domestic waste will be collected less frequently than once a week. They are happy to recycle, but they ask why they cannot add so many plastics and waste products. For example, only in a few places, and none that I know of, can one recycle Tetra Pak cartons. So many of the juices and liquids that we buy are packaged in such containers, and they all go to landfill. Why is it that so many people cannot include polystyrene and other kinds of plastics in their recycling bins?
If we are going to ask people to increase their recycling rates and, more importantly, if we are going to threaten them with financial penalties if they do not do so, we must make it as easy as possible to recycle, which is the objective of amendments Nos. 108 and 109. In the interests of public participation and acceptance, we must not threaten to criminalise people who do not yet have the recycling habit or fail to comply with their local—