Mayor of London Boris Johnson has said that London needs about 300 more waste management facilities to cope with the effects of climate change. He launched a draft consultation document entitled London Climate Change Adaptation Strategy last week. The document highlighted the possibility of climate change affecting the type and quantity of waste the city produces, and suggested that collection services were also vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. Johnson hopes to encourage more facilities such as the east London based Bywaters materials recycling facility and the Closed Loop Recycling plant.
Extreme weather conditions have already started to affect some recycling services in the UK. There have been recent news reports that the Craigmillar recycling centre in Edinburgh has been besieged by flood waters as deep as 3ft causing problems to the council and residents.
The strategy concluded: “The need to build about 300 more facilities provides the opportunity to locate and design these to be more resilient to extreme weather.”
Johnson said the strategy would help the capital deal with climate change “from a position of strength”.
“We need to concentrate efforts to slash carbon emissions and become more energy efficient in order to prevent dangerous climate change. But we also need to prepare for how our climate is expected to change in the future,” said Johnson.
Next Thursday (September 11) the Mayor will chair the London Waste and Recycling Board in order to work with London councils to help boost recycling in the capital.
