If you look around your home this week, there is a good chance your gaze will fall on recycling bags stuffed to the gunnels with screwed up wrapping paper, cardboard and plastic packaging and, in a moment, possibly this newspaper.
Christmas is a time when even the most avid recycler can be overwhelmed with the detritus from present giving and entertaining. In the next couple of weeks, Christmas cards can be recycled into new cards or dropped off at the various card recycling boxes around the constituency. The ever-efficient waste collection operatives of Brentwood Borough Council and Epping Forest District Council will whisk away black sacks and orange bags. And the left over peelings and uneaten sprouts will make good compost for gardens and allotments.
But there’s much more to be done, and on a much larger scale, which is why the Government is setting out its Resources and Waste Strategy to look at how we can use all our resources more efficiently and minimise waste. The experts calls it a “circular economy”. Our parents would have described it is “waste not, want not”.
The Strategy is going to put the cost of recycling or disposal of waste squarely in the hands of the producers rather than the tax payers. The polluter pays principle will be used to raise funds to recycle back into boosting household waste disposal and recycling. There’ll be more clarity on what can be recycled and be less of that myopic peering at the small print on a faded yoghurt pot trying to work out if it is good to go in the orange sack, or if it will contaminate a load of perfectly good reusable waste.
We can all do our bit by making sure we are not sending excessive amounts of rubbish to landfill, but this Resources and Waste Strategy will move the onus of responsibility further up the production chain. For now, go and dig out your best cook book and find out how to recycle those leftover sprouts.