The green lesson we can learn from Europe

12:12pm Wednesday 19th March 2008

There was some encouraging news recently - the emission of climate change gases in the UK fell marginally in 2006, by 0.5 per cent.

It was expected that the country would produce 658 million tonnes but the provisional figures indicate that the total was 652 million.

A more detailed scrutiny shows that the CO2 figures (around 85 per cent of all emissions) had hardly changed at 554 million tonnes. The warm winter reduced the amount of CO2 from housing but there was more from the electricity producers and from transport. It would have been significantly higher if the aviation and shipping figures had been included.

The main saving was the reduction in methane, with 13 per cent less from farming and a drop of 61 per cent from landfill sites mainly because of the improvements in recycling.

The amount of waste recycled per person has risen from 3kg in 1984 to 135kg in 2006, though the overall total produced by each of us was 511kg, more than half a tonne, so the national recycling figure is about 26 per cent.

Flanders, in Belgium, at around the same size as Yorkshire but with almost twice the population, recycles 60 per cent in urban areas, including the tower blocks, and more than 70 per cent in rural parts.

The low methane production in Flanders is because they only landfill 11 per cent of their waste so there is little biodegradable material rotting away at depth, without oxygen, to produce methane. The residual waste that they don't bury or recycle fuels a waste plant, that produces electricity, heating for hospitals and reduces CO2.

The reason for their success is the provision of alternatives for households, with free composting systems, free chickens to eat vegetable waste, and centres that accept fridges, washers and electrical goods, do them up and resell them, and very regular recycling collections.

However, the key factor is that households have to pay to have their non-recyclable waste removed - 67p a bag - and this has changed behaviour and met with general approval.

We should follow the Flanders example and reduce the amount of methane but it will mean cutting the 70 per cent of our household waste going to landfill to something nearer ten per cent.

We would need to keep all tea bags, newspapers, waste food, vegetable peelings, and cardboard out of the general waste bin and it is a challenge.

Home and district composting would be essential as would be similar schemes to those in Flanders with perhaps anaerobic digesters, capturing methane to produce electricity, instead of incineration.

The key would be involving every household in recycling, and the only way to do that is to make recycling free with frequent collections, and charge for the unsorted waste.

It works elsewhere and the UK just needs more political leadership.

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