Why Recycle?

The problem with waste

Londoners produce 3.4m tonnes of waste each year, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every hour. Every year people in Southwark alone generate 137,000 tonnes of waste. That's almost a tonne from every household in the borough and enough to fill Millwall Football Stadium or Tate Modern to the roof.

At the moment, most of this rubbish is buried in the ground in landfill sites. But space is running out and landfills are known to contribute to environmental problems, including global warming. The government has set tough new targets across the country to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and reduce the impact of our waste on the environment.

Getting the most out of natural resources

Lots of the waste thrown away could be reused or turned into something useful. It really is a waste to throw it away! Recycling is one way that waste can be diverted from landfill and turned back into a resource that can be used again.

What targets do we need to meet?

The government has set minimum recycling targets and maximum landfill allowances for every council in the country up to 2020. Every year, Southwark's targets are increased and if we fail to meet them, we will be fined.

About a quarter of Southwark's rubbish is sent to the SELCHP (South East London Combined Heat and Power) plant in Lewisham where it is used to generate electricity. The rest is sent to landfill in Essex. In 2007, we sent 60,000 tonnes of biodegradable waste to landfill. That amount needs to be dramatically reduced. By 2020 we want to send less than 25,000 tonnes to landfill.

We need to increase recycling faster than ever. We achieved our target of recycling and composting 20 per cent of our rubbish in 2008 but aim to achieve 30 per cent by 2010 and 50 per cent by 2020.

Progress so far

In 2003, about three percent of waste in Southwark was recycled. This has leapt to about 20 percent. This is excellent progress, but as we could be recycling up to 60 per cent of our waste, we still have some way to go to.

We're trying to make it as easy as possible for all residents in Southwark to recycle a wide range of materials. There are local recycling sites across the borough and door-step collections for residents eligible for our blue box and bag, clear bag and garden waste recycling schemes.

Beyond Recycling

Even better than recycling is reducing the amount of waste we produce in the first place. You can find some tips on how to do this on our waste minimisation pages.

Contact us

If you would like to find out more about recycling, please contact us.

Recycling unit
Tel: 020 7525 2000
environment@southwark.gov.uk 
30-34 Penrose Street
London
SE17 3DW