Sir, - I read with interest your reports and editorial (December 23rd) on a proposed waste incinerator for Dublin. I live in Richmond, London and the local authority here achieves a recycling rate of over 30 per cent of refuse for three reasons:
1. An infrastructure built up consistently over many years. 2. Publicity and education among the local community. 3. A target-orientated approach. This is despite the fact that many households can't be bothered to take part and regard their rubbish as someone else's problem, as you mentioned in your editorial. The ubiquitous festering black refuse sack has become a symbol of our age.
One obvious example of how most households can help is to compost vegetable waste and card, which requires minimal effort (40 per cent of Dublin's domestic refuse is organic food waste, according to your editorial). However, to make solutions like this work requires sustained education and publicity.
Building a huge incinerator appears to be a simplistic option which reflects a past and continuing failure to implement effective waste reduction and recycling policies. One suspects that policies which do not reflect a reverence for the modern-day gods of economic expansion and technology will not be considered, given the psychology of the type of people who end up managing our affairs. - Yours, etc.,
Kew Gardens Road, Kew, Surrey.