Why London must step up efforts to meet EU's 50% household recycling by 2020 target

London must keep up its recycling efforts to help the nation meet its 50% household recycling goal by 2020 set by the EU.

The UK produces approximately 330 million tonnes of waste each year, according to Evening Standard sponsors BEE Midtown — an estimated 3.7 million tonnes of which is plastic. Homes and businesses are responsible for roughly a quarter of the nation’s rubbish and yet recycling rates are plateauing. In fact, London’s figures are now below that of the national average. With the UK’s 2020 goal fast-approaching, more needs to be done to ensure it is met.

Help is at hand, however. BEE Midtown have drawn up guidelines designed to help both London businesses and individuals reduce their waste footprints through easily actionable methods.

Centred on the principles of the “Waste Hierarchy”, the guides detail steps to curtailing waste: reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery and — only with all other options exhausted — disposal.

Businesses are advised to analyse their waste streams and work out the quantity of rubbish produced, identifying the departments particularly responsible for the largest proportion of plastic waste.

This, the guide says, should uncover “areas for opportunity”. These might include swapping canteen plastic cutlery for reusable knives and forks; removing desk-side bins and installing segregated bins with clearly marked recycling options; and galvanising employees into action through “friendly competition”.

The Individual guide encourages Londoners to make simple swaps. Suggestions include carrying reusable shopping bags, water bottles and coffee cups; refusing to buy beauty products containing microbeads; choosing loose fruit and vegetables from the supermarket’ and packing lunches to avoid resorting to takeaway plastic packaged options.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ most recent UK waste statistics revealed 70.2% of UK packaging waste was either recycled or recovered in 2017, a considerable increase on the EU’s target of 60%.

That figure must continue to rise if the UK is to meet its household recycling target next year. The gauntlet has been thrown down; it’s time for London to rise to the challenge. Download the guides from bee.midtown.com/business-guide or bee-midtown.com/individual-guide.