The UK’s second largest waste authority and London’s largest, the North London Waste Authority (NLWA), has urged the UK government, business, and individuals to ‘finally wake up’ to the link between unsustainable consumption and waste and its ‘real and devastating’ consequences on climate change.
NLWA’s call comes as it begins a billboard and social media campaign of images of a typical street in London ‘deluged by a mountain of waste’, or 223 tonnes, which is the amount of waste Londoners generate in just one hour.
In one year, this adds up to two million tonnes of waste, which is of such a vast volume, that if dumped in the River Thames would stretch for 273 miles – 57 miles longer than its entire length (with a width of 100 metres and a depth of 0.5 metres).
The UK government must step up and provide the incentives and systems for business to help them on their journeys to planet friendly, circular models…
This amount does not account for the embedded carbon dioxide emitted in the extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, and transport of these discarded things, which is of an incalculable scale, NLWA says.
The hope of NLWA’s campaign is to create ‘lightbulb moments’, helping more people realise that while individually our choices may seem insignificant, collectively, our consumption adds up to an enormous problem. However, it can take just a minute to prevent waste in the first place by making better choices.
The campaign launches as the President of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), Dr Adam Read, calls for global leaders to recognise the crucial role that recycling and resource management has to play in supporting decarbonisation, branding the lack of ‘resources and waste’ representation in the COP26 programme a ‘critical oversight’.
Conscientious consumption
NLWA’s Chair, Cllr Clyde Loakes, said: “It is time for more conscientious consumption as well as urgent systemic change to create sustainable supply chains. The UK government must step up and provide the incentives and systems for business to help them on their journeys to planet friendly, circular models where waste is designed out, materials are reused, and unethical practices such as inbuilt obsolescence in electrics and white goods are banished.
“Every business must take up the mantle and embrace far less ecologically damaging practices. Whether manufacturing products from, and packaging them in, sustainable and recycled materials, to building carbon neutral supply chains, there is no time left for government or business to delay.
If each of us makes even just one habit change to reduce waste – whether taking a reusable cup to get a coffee, repairing our clothes, or keeping our mobiles for longer – just imagine what we can achieve together
“We all as individuals have a crucial role to play too. It may seem like just one disposable coffee cup, one mobile phone upgrade, one pair of ripped jeans in the bin, but multiply that day in day out, year in year out, and multiply again by your street, your village, town or city, and country, and the scale of waste we create is jaw-droppingly mountainous.
“If each of us makes even just one habit change to reduce waste – whether taking a reusable cup to get a coffee, repairing our clothes, or keeping our mobiles for longer – just imagine what we can achieve together.”
NLWA says that until there’s ‘significant systemic change’ and more of us make changes to greatly reduce our waste, it’s the role of waste disposal authorities, like NLWA, to manage the volumes of waste in the most ‘sustainable, responsible, and pragmatic way possible’.
