London Environment Strategy consultation

It would help if everyone could recycle the same items in the same way all over London.

Totally agree that everyone should be encouraged to compost the food that they throw out. We try to do this, and every week I can't believe how much food waste we generate as a family of four. Composting and being thoughtful about food waste needs to be supported by council waste strategies, support from supermarkets, along with mandatory compostable bags, and really good communications to local communities (communication from our local council, or lack of, is another matter).

In Chiswick, W4, we have just started to see some of our local shops, the smallest retailers, starting to use the biodegradable corn-based "plastic" carrier bags (nothing like this from the supermarkets unfortunately). These are fantastic and we have started using them as liners in our food waste bin in the kitchen. This totally makes sense and helps us feel good about re-using the bags that inevitably come into our home.

Please please can we have some mandates from the government on banning plastic bags and encouraging all retailers to stock biodegradable bags instead, and help educate people about what to do with their food waste.

Thank you!

I live in Bromley where the recycling facilities are excellent. The system is easy to understand and the council accepts a good range of things. I am not surprised that Bromley ranks amongst the best in London for recycling.

on the other hand I have a close friend who lives in Newham. The council there is appalling in its approach to recycling and it is not surprising that it is the lowest in the whole country in terms of the waste it recycles. Many basic materials cannot be recycled in newham.

What bothers me more generally however is the fact there are grey areas in recycling. Often I am out and about or am sometimes staying over with a relative and the rules aren’t as straight forward. Often authorities are too fussy about what they take and this becomes very confusing. I often read different and contradicting reports as to whether pizza boxes (food stained cardboard), wet paper and shredded paper are recyclable. Often authorities do not make this clear and this makes me reluctant to recycle these items as I am concerned this could contaminate recyclable material.

I am at a loss as to why councils in London don’t collectively sign up to large contracts where economies of scale can deliver cost savings, and in turn continuity can be delivered across borough borders. Poor boroughs like Newham should face very heavy penalties for the effects their policies have on our environment.

I try to recycle as much as possible. However, London currently offers no food composting service which is a shame. I also think all plastic packaging should either be recyclable or made of a material which will compose over time. London can and should be doing more.

We recycle as much as we can and Islington Council make it easy for us. the problem is knowing what is recyclable and what is not. For all their protestations the supermarket groups do not put enough effort into showing what material is recycleable. Other organisations are not much better.

My biggest bugbear is the plastic wrap used on supermarket food, especially fresh fruit and vegetables. It is nearly impossible to buy fruit and veg without plastic, and when I limit my choice to just those items not wrapped in plastic then my menu becomes very limited. It is completely unnecessary and is purely done for the supermarket's convenience. Super markets survived for years without pre-wrapping everything. If the food must be wrapped then there needs to be an alternative environmentally friendly and recyclable solution found. 

I an trying to cut down on plastics in my house, using soap bars instead of liquid soap, washing poweder in a box instead of liquid, and using Ecover refills. I also try to recycle all papers, plastics and glass and put food waste in the brown bin (Waltham Forest council has a weekly collection) but more and more my regular black bin is filling up with un-recyclable plastic and I find it unacceptable.

I think the idea of a local council making compost from food waste available to residents is a brilliant one and will be writing to Waltham Forest to suggest it.

I do think about receikling and I do careeing my food with me in my own receiclable conteiner, I did not trowing it away for ages. 

But food store can use receiclabe materials or private thinhs like boxes look on Costas they even gives you coffee cheaper if you have cap with you.

I do not buy takeaways. For all my purchases, I look at the packaging and labels and whatever can be recycled, is recycled.
However, I think that the ethos needs to change and that pacakaging, wherever possible, should be organic and compostable, not plastic or polystyrene.
Our local authority provides a large bin for all garden and food waste that is collected fortnightly - so it is fox proof.
It should be mandated that all local authorities have recycling centres and they should all be obliged to recycle ALL the same products so that if someone moves from one area to another, they know what they need to do - no confusion.

Yes we recycle everything where possible but the Government must take a lead in encouraging packaging companies to NOT use plastic. Plastic should be banned completely.  Why can't we revert to paper bags when shopping and help ourselves from large troughs with a scoop? Everyone should take responsibility to make this work by being careful with delicate fruit and vegetables, eggs etc and honesty does enter into it too.

100%. I try my best to produce as little food wast as possible and all that I due produce is made into compost by my LA as all of it goes in the compost bin. I try and reduce packaging if I can when I purchase food and all packaging is recycled whenever it is possible. I try and reuse when ever I can though as this is favourable of recycling although recycling is Good too but not as good as reuse. So I use reusable shopping bags, cups and absol;utley no plastic knifes and forks unless I do indeed wash them too and reuse them. This is probably the most important thing with respects to me and food and I have even ran a recycled food event were I made the most wonderful banquet from food that was due to be thrown away by Southwick market

Hello. I think the recycling scheme is fantastic - I recycle all packaging and food waste in Lambeth (the food waste pickup service is fantastic as well - I almost always fill up a bin each week with scraps, shavings, etc). I do wish I could add other green waste, such as lawn clippings. The only comment I'd make with regards to food packaging is that there's still far too much of it. We need to find ways of reducing the amount of packaging that is being used (which has probably only gone up exponentially with all the online shopping and home grocery delivery services (although I switched to Sainsbury's for this reason - they deliver in their own plastic boxes, which they take back with them, which is far more environmentally friendly than other services).

I don't feel London offers great options for recycling. There is very little information and also the collections are sporadic. As a resident, I have a once per week collection in a designated plastic bag (that is only delivered once every 6 months) and no option for food waste collection. As a business owner, I am only able to recycle cardboard and glass with Westminster. Not great. 

There needs to be legislation banning supermarkets from supplying produce in the amount of plastic they do. It is not needed and wasteful.

There needs to also be more free flow produce and ingredients so you can fill your own containers and support for those who can create this. 

It would be really helpful to have more detailed information for everyone about what can be recycled. Local authorities should work out what people are doing 'wrong' and tell us. They should be encouraged to inform people for example.

Can black plastic be recycled

Should I leave the metal top on a wine bottle?

Or the plastic top on a plastic bottle?

Can I recycle paper serviettes?

Plastic lids from take-away coffee?

It would be great if my local authority (Kingston upon Thames) would allow me to access the nearby recycling centre on foot. We used to be able to do this, access was withdrawn 'for improvements to be made' a year ago, without notice. We were told this might be restored if practical after 6 months. Still no restoration of access. 

I am expected to visit the site by car or not at all, which rather goes against the green lifestyle I try to live. Even if I got a reduction in my council tax to cover the cost of hireing a car or having yet another wheelie bin collected this is still counter productive. I wonder how much small scale fly tipping is down to this?