Tim Mitchell of Westminster city council responds to a report on what really happens to our rubbish. Phil Gyford suggests a way of dealing with Amazon’s unrecyclable plastic bags
Your excellent article on recycling (Dirty little secret, Weekend, 17 August) rightly highlighted Westminster’s low recycling rates, an issue that gives my colleagues and me sleepless nights. With nearly a million people coming into our city on an average weekday, Westminster is confronted with unique challenges, but we cannot shirk our responsibility.
As a city, we are addicted to plastic and, much like any addict, it can be hard to face up to the scale of a problem: 100m plastic bottles are discarded in Westminster each year, and while we sit towards the bottom of the recycling league table, our latest survey shows that 86% of our city’s residents say they recycle.
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