Achieving recycling targets in the UK - practical examples from East and West Sussex

Despite legislative attempts to increase the recycling of waste, the UK still only recycled 9% of municipal waste in 2000. As a result a series of recycling targets were set in Waste Strategy 2000, the national waste strategy for England and Wales. Moreover, the responsibility for meeting these targets has been filtered through to local government. Each local authority now has a statutory recycling and composting target based upon their recycling performance in 1998/99. Failure to meet these targets may result in them receiving penalties. This paper examines the approach that the UK local authorities of East and West Sussex are adopting in order to achieve these statutory recycling targets and the barriers they must overcome