Overall in Northamptonshire there has been a general increase in recycling rates between 01 and provisional 07 results. This is possibly due to the introduction of the 2002 recycling stategy adopted which set targets to reduce recycling and composition rates.
1 – 36% household waste by 2010/11
2- 45% household waste by 2015/16
3- 50% household waste by 2020/21
However this varies through districts possibly due to different collection services offered with the majority of the highest recycling in 06/07 coming from districts that have recyclables collected on a weekly basis. Recycling per person also varies within districts there could be numerous reasons for this including an element of self choice not to recycle. The only exception to this is NCC (HWRC’s) as this is the county council so you would expect the numbers to be lower as it’s an organisation rather than individuals so the recycling is shared between many people.
To improve recycling rates you could lower the size of bins for general residential rubbish and increase the size of the recycling boxes. This would hopefully encourage people to recycle more due to lack of space. In turn with this government or county councils could insure recycling is collected on a weekly basis so people don’t have it pilling up. Another suggestion would be to make it clear either through education, posters and TV ads as to what and where to recycle. The education sides of things you can start as a child by making recycling fun – e.g. re introducing the wombles onto kids TV!
These following suggestions have already been implemented in some places however they could be increased. Companies could make an increased effort to reduce the amount of non-recyclable packaging on their food or other items for example. They could also follow some of the supermarkets and start imposing payments to use plastic bags so as to encourage people to re-use theirs, or follow Tesco and reward ‘green points’ for not using their plastic bags.
Hopefully all these things and others will reduce recycling rates even further and meet the 2020/21 predictions.
reference
http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/B63E7599-1BCC-42DF-BF9E-8BC330278515/0/NJMWMSStrategyFINAL.pdf
1 comment:
Its all a matter of carrots versus sticks.
Education is fine...but the very fact that we had the wombles before didn't necessarily stop our landfill sites from overflowing.
There needs to be behavioural and cultural changes. Perhaps a bit of fining for NOT recycling might be a good start.
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