Community Recycling Network: News & Events

PRESS RELEASE

August 4, 2003

CRN/AN/PR42

To be released immediately

MINISTER PRAISES THE COMMUNITY SECTOR AND SAYS LOCAL AUTHORITIES SHOULD HAVE MORE AUTONOMY

In an exclusive interview in the current issue of The Waste Paper, the Community Recycling Network's magazine, the new Minister for the Environment, Elliot Morley praises the work of the community sector and says he wants to see a commitment from local authorities to meet the recycling targets.

Talking to Charles Newman, the editor of The Waste Paper, Morley says that community recycling groups provide an excellent service. "They have been separating waste streams for a long time and often do it in a much more sophisticated way than local authorities, which have often concentrated more on weight rather than the number of waste streams," he says.

"Community groups are also linked with re-use … many of them are integrated in terms of collection re-use and distribution, and are community-based, which is an activity worthy of encouragement and support and I see them as having a very good long-term future."

The minister says that the future for many community groups lies in partnerships with local authorities. He says there are some very good examples among local authorities but performance is patchy. "We need to get the standards of the worst up to the standards of the best."

While acknowledging the problems smaller local authorities have faced in bidding for a slice of the Ł140 million Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund he says he feels that the challenge fund has awarded money to the best projects. "We know where the money is going, it has helped boost our capacities to meet targets.

" The minister says: "I think we should give local authorities some freedom and autonomy, and take them on trust in relation to their commitments to act responsibly and meet the targets."

But on the subject of zero waste he remains unconvinced. "I think it's very difficult to have zero waste. You are always going to have some residue, but there is no doubt in my mind there is huge scope to get that amount down."

He concludes that a major change in public attitudes will be needed to achieve this. "Unless you can get people to really value the idea of recycling, then you are not really going to make the progress you want."

ENDS

Notes for editors: The Community Recycling Network is a national umbrella organisation for more than 300 community groups, co-operatives and not-for-profit businesses in the community waste sector. Its aim is to promote community-based recycling as the most effective way of tackling the UK's growing waste problem.

Its members have achieved some of the highest recycling rates in the UK and offer separated kerbside recycling collections to 1.6 million households - seven per cent of the UK population.

The full interview is published in The Waste Paper Issue 88, August 2003.

It can also be viewed at http://www.crn.org.uk/index.shtmlpublications/wastepaper/main.shtml

The Community Recycling Network is based at Trelawny House, Surrey Street, Bristol, BS2 8PS, tel: (0117) 942 0142. The CRN website is www.crn.org.uk. For all media enquiries please contact: Andy Nelmes, CRN Press Officer, (0117) 908 0415 or 07949 626119, andyn@crn.org.uk