EU Binding Targets on Waste

MEPs in Brussels have voted for binding targets to reduce the amount of waste produced in the EU.

The parliament proposed that production of waste should be stabilised at 2008 levels by 2012, and scaled back by 2020. MEPs also said 50% of municipal waste and 70% of industrial waste should be recycled by the same 2020 deadline.

One of the major decisions for waste in Coventry will be taken in 2007: what to do with the incinerator on London Road. Our view is that the incinerator is an obstacle to a drastic ramping-up of recycling. Why recycle more if you can burn it for profit in the incinerator? Why set up a social enterprise at arm's length from the council to recycle/reuse plastic, if you can keep saying "the nearest place is St Helens" and burn plastic (high caloric value, that plastic) in the incinerator?

We can't get locked into decades more of an incineration-first waste policy for Coventry.