Recycling figures published today by the Audit Commission reveal that most local authorities - both Labour and Conservative - have made little or no progress towards meeting the Government's target of recycling 25% of household waste by the year 2000. Currently the average recycling rate is about 5%. 38 local authorities are still recycling less than 2%, and four are doing no recycling at all.

[1] None of the constituencies of the party leaders approach the 25% target. Paddy Ashdown's comes out top, at 11.1%, with John Major's in the middle at 4.8% and Tony Blair's bringing up the rear at 1.6%. Meanwhile a new Landfill Directive agreed late yesterday by the European Commission should lead to substantial
increases in recycling.

[2] The Directive will now be discussed by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Friends of the Earth will be working to encourage the UK Government to support the proposal.

[3] An improvement in recycling rates will be necessary to meet the Directive's aims.
The poor recycling figures fly in the face of commitments made by the main political parties.In 1990 the Government set a target of recycling 25 per cent of household waste by the year 2000, which it reiterated in 1995.

[4] Labour has said that increasing reuse and recycling, and reducing the amount of waste produced are the most sensible ways of dealing with the nation's waste.

[5] However, both Labour and Conservative authorities have performed badly in meeting recycling commitments. Most household waste is disposed to landfill or burnt in polluting incinerators. Friends of the Earth is calling for the Government to set a much more ambitious target, of recycling 80 per cent of household waste by the year 2010.

[6] Dr Anna Thomas, Waste Campaigner of Friends of the Earth said:
"Despite all the fine words from the Tories and Labour on the importance of recycling, these new statistics show that they have not delivered. We need to conserve resources not waste them, and that means much
higher recycling targets.
The cost of hitting much higher targets would be about the same as a packet of crisps per household each week.

[7] The reason we are wasting valuable resources is that both Labour and Tory local authorities prefer to chuck them into rubbish dumps, which contaminates underground water, or send them up in smoke in incinerators which produce toxic fumes."