UK Waste Strategy Lacks Ambition

David Miliband announced the Government's UK Waste Strategy to 2020 yesterday. Despite some reasonable measures the strategy as a whole was unambitious and lacked teeth, particularly when dealing with corporate interests like the packaging industry and supermarkets. Green Party of England and Wales spokesperson Derek Wall comments here.

The Tories and the sensationalist media are having a field day over "bin spies", "bin taxes" and the like while the real sources and causes of waste go largely untackled except for existing EU legislation and toothless exhortation. Waste strategy should not be another stick with which to beat already deprived communities, or an excuse to line the pockets of incinerator-operating multinationals.

The really ambitious strategy now being enacted in far-sighted communities around the world is to aim for Zero Waste.