What a waste: we could be recycling more

Consumers are sending more rubbish to landfill sites than necessary because they are unclear about which things can be recycled and which cannot, a survey indicated today.

In research for the vocational qualifications provider City & Guilds, 88% of UK households said they were already recycling some of their waste. But nearly half (46%) thought they could improve if they better understood which materials could be recycled.

Even those who did try to recycle as much as possible often got it wrong, according to council staff.

More than half told researchers householders tried to recycle the wrong types of plastic, with 58% saying that such mistakes slowed up the recycling process.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics have suggested that Britons throw away an average of their body weight in rubbish every seven weeks, an amount City & Guilds said could be reduced if the process were less complicated.

The organisation is launching a new NVQ qualification for recycling staff, which it says will help them with customer care and safety and inform them of changes in one of Britain's fastest growing sectors.

John Birch, waste recycling expert at City & Guilds, said: "Our research shows that householders are more knowledgeable about recycling and would like to do much more.

"With the average dustbin containing enough unrealised energy for 3,500 showers, better recycling will certainly make a huge impact on our resources and environment."

Philip Ward, director at Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) welcomed the new qualification.

"More and more of us are getting into the recycling habit, but sometimes we have questions about how and what can be recycled," he said.

"This will help council frontline staff answer those questions, making the service as easy and straightforward as possible."

Wrap, which was set up by the government in 2000, is currently working to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill sites by 3m tonnes and recruit at least 4 million members of the public to become "committed recyclers" by March 2008.

It claims more than 50% of household waste could be recycled - more than double the amount recorded in the last set of government figures.

These show that in 2004-5, households in England recycled almost 23% of their rubbish, compared with 57% in Germany, 64% in Netherlands and 41% in Denmark.

Local councils, which are under pressure from the government to reduce landfill and hit recycling targets, are becoming increasingly strict with householders.

Section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 gives councils the power to specify what kinds of waste should be placed in which bins, and homeowners can face fines of up to £1,000 if they get it wrong.

Compulsory recycling schemes have been launched in some parts of London, and earlier this year Exeter council took a resident to court after rotting food was found in the wrong bin.

It lost its case because it was unable to prove that the rubbish had not been dumped by a passerby.

Today Kennet District Council in Devizes said it would issue penalty notices to residents who put out black sacks of rubbish alongside their wheelie bins, using powers granted in the Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act.

The council leader, Chris Humphries, said the government fined local authorities like Kennet for exceeding rubbish targets and that cost would inevitably be passed on to the taxpayer.

SPECIES EXTINCTION

Marine reserves

Vast networks of marine reserves are essential if the world's threatened fish stocks are to be saved, says a group of ocean experts.

Fishing is currently banned in just 0.1 per cent of the world's oceans. This should rise to 30 per cent, says a team of scientists working through the US National Center for Ecological Analysis in Santa Barbara, California.

Fishing communities are likely to oppose the proposals. But the results of the team's two and a half-year research programme suggests marine reserves boost local fishing industries in the short term, as well as the long term.

The team has evaluated nearly 90 existing marine reserves, conducted new research on fish lifecycles and stocks, and reviewed existing data.

Bigger, better

They found that even small reserves of a few square kilometres are highly effective at boosting fish stocks. Within two to four years, the number of fish inside a reserve was double the number outside. On average, these fish were also 30 per cent larger and produced three times as many offspring.

"The findings represent the first large-scale synthesis of ecological data on this issue. They have really changed the way we look at marine reserves," says Steven Gaines, director of the Marine Science Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

No-fishing zones were created too late to save certain fish stocks, such as cod around Newfoundland, says Stephen Palumbi of Harvard University. Now new reserves must be established to protect cod elsewhere, as well as other species, he says.

Home patch

One of the most significant findings of the new research is that fish larvae do not drift as far away from a reserve as had been expected. Genetic analysis shows that in fact, on average they disperse only up to 50-100 kilometres.

This means reserves should ideally be 50-100 kilometres in size, says Palumbi. But he says networks of much smaller reserves interspersed with fishing zones would also be effective.

The localised drift of fish larvae should mean that the fish available for harvesting rises dramatically close to a reserve, he says.

Callum Roberts of York University found evidence to support this. The Soufriere Marine Management Area in St Lucia encompasses 11 kilometres of coral reef. It contains four fully protected zones interspersed with fishing areas.

The Soufriere reserve "has been a dramatic success," says Roberts. "The intensities of fish in the fishing zones have doubled. Fishers say they think they're better off with the reserve than without it."

Roberts and Palumbi hope data of this sort will help convince fishing communities around the world that marine reserves will benefit them, as well as the fish.