Conservatives boost Cameron's green agenda by setting the UK's first recycling targets for household waste
Posted, June 17, 2008 @ 12:00
‘Conservatives are at the forefront of the green agenda’ said Conservative MEP Dr Caroline Jackson, in the week that the European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, will determine for the first time recycling targets for household waste and construction and demolition waste.
This agreement sets out mandatory recycling targets - 50% for paper, metal, plastic, and glass from household waste and 70% for construction and demolition waste. This is the first time that mandatory recycling targets have been proposed for household waste. 2020 is the year set for achieving the targets.
Dr Jackson MEP, who is the rapporteur for the EU Waste Framework Directive, said:
"We have transformed the directive into a campaigning law aimed at bringing quality of life issues onto the European agenda.
"Conservatives have scored a success because we have agreed achievable targets for recycling and also we have agreed that each country can achieve them as it sees fit. This is all about David Cameron's green agenda and all about subsidiarity.
Dr Jackson added that the Commission must now produce proposals for waste prevention by 2011. "It proved impossible to get the Council or Commission to agree to quantitative waste prevention targets in this directive but the Parliament has created, through its amendments, momentum for future policy that may contain waste prevention targets. It is something for our successors to build on."