EDUCATION


burning our rubbish, even if heat and electricity are captured. Incinerators trap councils in decades long expensive contracts that impede recycling rates. Nor are they the green option their proponents claim: they destroy precious materials and any carbon savings they make through displacing fossil fuels are more than made up for by the energy required to remake the goods and materials they burn.


With unemployment set to rise dramatically, it’s good news that forthcoming research from Friends of the Earth shows that at the higher recycling rates of the future there are many thousands more jobs in recycling than there are in landfill and incineration.


Of course, there’s much more to saving cash and the planet than getting our waste policy right, as important as that is. The public sector has an enormous role to play in ensuring we beat the climate challenge and reduce our disastrous impact on the environment.


For example, councils have a key role to play in ensuring that UK targets for tackling climate change are met, through policies such as green transport plans, programmes to cut energy waste and installing renewable energy schemes. And these will also bring other benefits such as boosting the local economy, creating new green jobs and slashing fuel bills.


Times are hard, and the public sector is set to feel the pain more than any other but challenging times are times of opportunity too. What we need from the government is sensible advice and reliable support to see us through to the green economy we urgently require.


Julian Kirby is Friends of the Earth’s resources campaigner


Nov/Dec 10 pse 41


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