On Thursday - March 18th, we celebrated ‘Global Recycling Day’. Reducing the amount of waste we produce, and having a greater care for our impact on our natural environment around us, are matters I know we all value and care about deeply in Mid Sussex and my inbox reflects that.
I have always tried to make a point of buying items with recyclable packaging in the supermarkets, as well as buying loose goods, and it is vital we set a good example to our children about the importance of reducing the amount of waste we produce, as well as our carbon footprint. My children are always keenly reminding me to be green and our schools do a great job of ensuring our young people care deeply about, and have an interest in, these issues. Still, we have a responsibility to highlight what we can all do and how we can make a difference.
As a Government, we’ve launched a number of key plans to reduce waste and deliver change - including proposals for new measures which will ramp up action on fast fashion and hold manufacturers accountable for textile waste.
Furthermore, we have published a consultation on the Waste Prevention Programme, which will seek to agree on a programme which will support our strategic targets on achieving Net-Zero by 2050, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, addressing our resource security, protecting our natural capital and creating jobs and growth, through increasing our resource productivity and minimising waste.
I was interested to see recent studies show resource usage, extraction and processing leads to around 50% of global GHG emissions and 90% of the impacts on biodiversity and water, increasing the efficiency with which we use materials is absolutely vital. Reducing waste is a critical way to achieve this.
This new Waste Prevention Programme will:
- Build on the over-arching framework of the Resources & Waste Strategy
- This will have a specific emphasis to shifting action up the waste hierarchy, setting out a more detailed set of actions with a sectoral dimension.
- This includes showing how we propose to use the new powers we are seeking in our landmark Environment Bill, on resource efficiency and waste.
- Seek to drive action by industry, by:
- Setting out the case for change,
- Identifying key sectors and the actions which would make a significant difference in those sectors.
- It also includes three building blocks of a more resource efficient, circular economy:
- Designing out waste;
- Local systems & services;
- Data & information.
- We then set out a case for action in seven key sectors: construction, textiles, furniture, electronics, food & plastics. These sectors have been chosen because of the amount of waste they produce, the associated carbon emissions, and other environmental impacts such as water pollution.
I hope this will give everyone confidence that, on this Global Recycling Day, we remain committed and proactive in seeking new avenues through which we can reduce our carbon footprint, control the amount of waste we produce, and lead the world in the fight to save our environment.