Taking it to the curb: Britons warm to recycling

But finding uses for recycled material is a challenge. The government has set up the Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP) to develop markets for "recyclate" materials. Plastics are used in all-weather sports pitches, outdoor furniture, and street posts. Glass has been used for aggregatesin concrete, sports turf, and even golf bunkers.

But WRAP anticipates a surplus of more than 550,000 tons of green and amber glass alone by 2008. Adam Read, head of waste management at Hyder Consulting, told a recent conference: "Without overseas markets, both in the EU and wider afield in the rapidly developing economies of Latin America, China, and India, we may sink under the weight of our unprocessed recyclables."

Thus the government has eagerly embraced incineration - or "energy from waste," as it likes to call the process of extracting energy from trash burning. It plans to increase the amount burned in incinerators from around 10 percent today to more than 20 percent in 2015.

This is controversial, particularly among those who live in the shadows of the giant combustion chambers. Incinerators spew out greenhouse gases and other pollutants, some of which are considered harmful to humans. Residents in the central England city of Nottingham are railing against plans to expand the Eastcroft incinerator, which has one of the worst records for pollution breaches.

"We shouldn't be incinerating our waste - we should be treating it as a resource and recycling it," says Jon Beresford, who lives near the site. "The problem is that the UK has dragged its heels for decades, so there is little infrastructure for recycling. Now the new EU rules stop us from sending stuff to landfill, the government is panicking and embracing incinerators as a quick fix."

Michael Warhurst, of the Friends of the Earth environmental group, says that incineration generates far less energy that recycling can save. "And it still produces carbon dioxide.... We should be focusing instead on phasing out residual waste."

That means cutting down on the packaging and materials used by producers and consumers. The government points to estimates that as much as 93 percent of production materials are never used in the final product. "Our approach has to change so we consider the 'life-cycle' of a product - not what to do with the waste once the process is complete, but what can be done at the outset to reduce the waste," says the government official.

Last year, the government signed up 13 major retailers to commit to reduce packaging over the next five years. But retailers also say they have to give customers what they want. Some consumers are turning to package-free shopping, such as fruit and vegetable delivery boxes that get reused each week. Others still like their polythene.

"Grapes, strawberries, they all look better in the plastic containers," says Ms. Gant, adding that her newfound enthusiasm does not stretch to the weekly shop for her family of five. "Some of the loose stuff looks like it has been handled a bit too much."

Page: 1 | 2