Queen’s Speech

Lord Morris of Handsworth Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Handsworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the gracious Speech. Despite the many conferences, forums, summits, measures and targets over the past 12 months, there has been only a passing reference to climate change. I am therefore pleased that today’s agenda gives us the opportunity to raise wider issues of concern relating to the environment.

I am among the many who believe that for the sake of the next generation we have a responsibility to step back from our excesses and help to address the problems which endanger the environment. One way we can make a difference is by a very minor change in our lifestyle and behaviour. We can do that by recycling. I am fortunate to be part of a household which has recycled for many years without any particular encouragement from government. I recall one family member who collected newspaper for recycling many years ago to raise money for the Scout movement—until the bottom dropped out of the market and no one wanted recycled newspaper.

The need for us all to recycle is urgent. The UK’s recycling rate for household waste reached 44.9% in 2014—not much up on the previous year. The EU target, as I understand it for the UK, is 50% by 2020, and I gather that the general view is that we might just not reach that target. I know that I am not alone in often finding it difficult to work out how we should recycle our waste. Neither am I alone in wondering how many of the things we carefully sort for recycling finish up in what is called a landfill site.

There appears to be a great deal of cynicism about recycling, which needs to be challenged—but not by red carding or fining householders for putting an item in the wrong place. My own experience explains why a rethink is necessary. First, on the subject of collections, we cannot all be at home on a certain day at a certain time to put out our bins. That is not possible. Personally, our household can deal with this by taking our recycling to the nearest centre. But that still presents a problem for us. Our nearest centre was six miles away until it was closed three years go. Now the journey is a 15-mile journey in one direction. We are fortunate because we have a choice of different local authorities and we use whichever is closest to our business on the day. As recyclers by habit and nature, we have learned to live with that. But it is a terrible waste of time and it is not good for the environment.

Our biggest challenge is that each of those local authorities has a different recycling policy and different equipment and, indeed, different contractors. Even within the same local authority areas there are different rules. One does not take plastic bottles or cartons. One does not take shredded paper—and so it goes on. Much of the packaging for food items indicates whether the package can be recycled but not where it can be recycled, and since different local authorities have different facilities you are expected to check before you go.

Information on websites is confusing at best and inadequate at worst. When you call the local authority or ask for advice, generally speaking, the response is, “We don’t know, just put it in the rubbish bin”. We recognise that different products might require different packaging, but do we really need so many different varieties? Why can there not be better co-operation between the packaging companies, retailers and local councils to share a common approach to recycling, to make it a friendly and rewarding experience for the environment?

If supermarkets sell items in packaging that cannot be recycled, perhaps—just perhaps—they should be given some responsibility for dealing with the package rather than the shopper. It is not only food which causes a problem. Packaging from internet shopping could sink us all, and much of it will not fit into the bins provided by local authorities. At home, two online purchases from the same store recently arrived in boxes big enough to hold a large dinner service. One contained one mug; the other contained two packs of floor-cleaning bags, both with metres and metres of bubble wrap. The boxes were recyclable, but what a waste for such a small item. The bubble wrap cannot be recycled so we have two problems for the price of one.

While many households recycle items such as books and clothing, I often wonder whether any action can be taken in co-operation with manufacturers, particularly of electrical goods. In recent times it seems that nothing is made to last or to be repairable. It is all about consumption in the end, which is damaging to the environment. We need a more effective partnership between manufacturers, supermarkets and retailers, including online traders. We need to reduce packaging and make it more environmentally friendly, while local authorities provide common facilities wherever we live.

Making recycling easier, friendlier and more purposeful will be a better start to get us toward that magic 50%. In doing so we must remember that the world we inherited was built by others, but the world we leave behind will be built by us.