We recycle and compost far more in Britain today than at the turn of the millennium.
Recycling targets come from Europe, and are the result of decades of directives from Brussels to reduce the environmental harm from our rubbish.
In the 70s, the most pressing issue was cleaning up the places where we dumped our rubbish, which were overwhelmingly landfill sites. The waste framework directive in 1975 was key, and put controls on landfills, the “endpipe” as they are known in the trade, to rule out bad practice and pollution.
Later, the focus switched to the people who produced the rubbish. Recycling at bottle banks began in the 80s, but didn’t get going in earnest until the late 90s, when the first kerbside collections started that we are all familiar with today.
The EU landfill directive of 1999 was pivotal, requiring member states including the UK to cut the amount of biodegradable rubbish – garden waste, leftover food – going to landfill. “The landfill directive has changed the way we manage waste in this country,” says the Environment Agency.
The landfill tax, a steadily rising levy on every tonne of waste that enters landfill, was brought in quicker as a result of the EU’s directive, say waste experts. The tax gave local authorities a big financial reason to encourage residents to recycle and compost.
Largely as a result, recycling rates in England shot up from 12% in 2001 to 45% in 2014. Other parts of the UK have done even better, with Wales at 56% in 2014-15. The EU target for the UK as a whole is 50% by 2020.
“We now recycle nearly half of our household waste because of EU legislation,” says Friends of the Earth. “Back in the early 1990s we hardly recycled any of our rubbish. Almost all of it just went to landfill.” One industry observer says there is no doubt that the recycling and reuse agenda pushed by the EU has helped the UK to act.
If Britain does leave, voters will no longer be affected by the so-called circular economy package, being discussed by the EU, which would see even tougher recycling targets, of 65% of household waste by 2030.
