An advertising campaign along the lines of that used for COVID-19 would get the UK recycling, the House of Lords has been told.
The message about a need for recycling publicity came during a Lords’ debate on post-COVID-19 recovery strategies, and how they would contribute to a fairer, cleaner, and more sustainable economy.
The debate was called by crossbench peer, Baroness Hayman who said: “The pandemic has distracted attention from the climate change crisis, but the imperative of tackling that overwhelming threat has not diminished. Without urgent and radical action, the world faces a dystopian future: extreme weather events; forest fires and melting ice caps; the spread of disease vectors; mass climate migration; and threats to the very existence of countries and communities vulnerable to sea-level changes.”
Plastics
The call for a recycling message came from one of the peers joining in the virtual debate, Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative). The life peer has held and still holds a variety of posts within the business sector and is currently chair of the Red Tractor Assurance scheme and was corporate director of Tesco for nine years.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe has suggested a major campaign to get people recycling
Baroness Neville-Rolfe said that she was “essentially practical. I question the wisdom of virtue signalling and I argue for all countries to play their part, so that we are not disadvantaged economically.”
Then she spoke on plastics. “I want to make practical progress on plastic. The crisis has shown that it is the magical substance that its inventors found it to be: flexible, light, clean, cheap and indestructible. It is being put to great use in PPE, ventilators, contactless payment and screens in shops, but the scale of indestructible plastic use has been a growing worry for years, and the crisis is creating an even larger mountain of plastic waste. As we know from experience, this will clutter watercourses and reach the sea, where it will mass in hotspots and have a devastating effect on wildlife and fisheries.”
Patchwork
Against this background, the Baroness asked: “Can we use the crisis to introduce reform in the UK, and to dispense with the patchwork of different systems that I see when I move from Wiltshire to Southwark? There must be a single system of bins for both household and business waste, and a single, clear post-Brexit system of labelling, showing what can be recycled and what cannot. With an advertising campaign of the kind that the Government have pioneered on Covid, citizens and business will get behind recycling.
“There have been literally years of consultation on different schemes and taxes, and mixed signals from different departments, but mountains have grown, and we have witnessed an unacceptable delay in bringing in a single system to encourage the right consumer behaviour. As others have said, Covid gives us an opportunity, here and elsewhere, to change the paradigm.”
The Lords also heard from Lord Chartres, the former Bishop of London.
Environmental code
Lord Chartres said he felt that post-COVID-19, there would be a benefit from an introduction of a an easy to follow code of environmental principles.
“A code of environmental principles ought to be at least as well known as the Highway Code”
“The principles of ‘polluter pays’, prevention and the precautionary approach are a very good start, but we need to develop them in the light of recent public debate. It is important not to complicate things but, rather, to lift them out of the realm of international expert conferences and specialist papers so that simple and memorable environmental principles become part of ordinary, everyday conversation.”
Lord Chartres continued: “A code of environmental principles ought to be at least as well known as the Highway Code. I believe that it ought to include a commitment to development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The Covid crisis has given us all the time to reflect on how we live now; I hope that we will not waste the opportunity.”
Recovery round tables
Responding for the government, Baroness Penn said that the first recovery round tables had just been held, “bringing together businesses, business representative groups and leading academics to consider measures to support economic recovery and ensure that we have the right skills and opportunities in place for our workforce over the next 18 months.
“These round tables cover five key themes.”
“These round tables cover five key themes, including ensuring a green recovery, capturing economic growth opportunities from the shift to net-zero carbon emissions, increasing opportunity and levelling up economic performance across the UK through skills and apprenticeships.”
Baroness Penn concluded: “The contributions to the debate have highlighted the link between the impact of the Covid pandemic and the climate crisis on young people and our next generation; if we are not able to address both of these, we will have failed in the question of intergenerational fairness. Those contributions have provided rich food for thought as the Government develop our recovery plan and ensure that we do not fail that test.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
