§ Mr. BennettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will list those local authorities which have met his target for recycling domestic waste. [101446]
§ Mr. MeacherThere is no recycling target which each individual local authority is expected to meet. There is a national goal to recycle or compost 25 per cent. of household waste as soon as possible, hopefully by 2005. By 2010 we hope to see 30 per cent. of household waste being recycled or composted, and in the longer term we hope to see a third of all households being dealt with in this way.
Under our Best Value Initiative performance indicators are being developed for local authority waste services. From these, authorities will be expected to derive targets for their own performance on waste, having regard to any national goals we set in the forthcoming National Waste Strategy. I emphasise, though, that local targets should take account of local assessments of the Best Practicable Environmental Option, and will not therefore necessarily be at the same level as our national goals. I fully expect some authorities to put forward targets that exceed those that we propose, and others to put forward lower targets.
483WFrom data supplied for the 1997–98 Municipal Waste Survey, it is clear that many authorities are doing excellent work on recycling and composting. From that data, the following authorities have recycling rates of 25 per cent. or over, and some are exceeding 30 per cent.:
- Adur District Council
- Chichester District Council
- Chiltern District Council
- Christchurch Borough Council
- East Dorset District Council
- Eastleigh Borough Council
- Gosport Borough Council
- Havant Borough Council
- New Forest District Council
- North Dorset District Council
- Purbeck District Council
- Reigate and Banstead Borough Council
- South Bucks District Council
- Tandridge District Council
- Weymouth and Portland Borough Council
Note:
Recycling rates are calculated as the quantity of household waste collected for recycling, expressed as a percentage of total household waste. These calculations exclude recycling of building rubble, and make no allowance for home composting.In non-unitary areas, the figures cover amounts collected within the area by both the Waste Collection Authority and the Waste Disposal Authority. In most cases, figures for total household waste (apart from amounts collected for recycling) are taken from returns from Waste Disposal Authorities.I also know that a number of authorities who do not appear on this list have recently put in new schemes which are helping those authorities to be well on the way to achieving recycling rates over 40 per cent.