§ Mr. Nicholas Bakerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he has taken to promote schemes for collecting bottles and cans so as to minimise the waste of raw materials and energy; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Giles ShawWe are assisting the glass industry to meet its recycling targets over the next three years by giving as much encouragement as possible to the bottle-bank scheme, which is organised by the glass industry in co-operation with local authorities.
As regards cans, I understand that as a follow-up to a working party report on beverage containers, completed last year, officials in the Department of Industry are having discussions with the metal-packaging industry on the development of voluntary schemes to recover and recycle all types of metal beverage container. There have for some time been collection schemes for aluminium cans in Edinburgh and Birmingham and one for all types of cans in Leeds.