Your excellent article on recycling (Dirty little secret, Weekend, 17 August) rightly highlighted Westminster’s low recycling rates, an issue that gives my colleagues and me sleepless nights. With nearly a million people coming into our city on an average weekday, Westminster is confronted with unique challenges, but we cannot shirk our responsibility.
As a city, we are addicted to plastic and, much like any addict, it can be hard to face up to the scale of a problem: 100m plastic bottles are discarded in Westminster each year, and while we sit towards the bottom of the recycling league table, our latest survey shows that 86% of our city’s residents say they recycle.
That statistic is telling – revealing the gap between our perception and the reality. It is this gap that we must close if we are to significantly improve recycling rates and reduce waste.
Sadly it’s true that much of our household rubbish is sent to energy from waste. However, I want to stress that all the waste collected in our green bins is sorted and recycled, and we need residents, businesses and visitors to help out by recycling. It just takes one or two of the wrong items to contaminate an entire bag of recycling – a message we desperately need to get across.
We can and will do more to reduce waste – in particular providing clearer, better information – but we need everyone to do their bit, too.
Cllr Tim Mitchell
Westminster city council cabinet member for environment and city management
• Rather than worrying about how to recycle Amazon’s new plastic envelopes (Outrage at Amazon’s unrecyclable plastic bags, 21 August), why not post them back to Amazon’s UK head office and make it their problem?
Phil Gyford
London
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