Householders are urged to recycle to stop waste going
to landfill sites |
Councils
are investigating what happens to their recycled rubbish after the BBC
revealed 500 tonnes had been shipped unsorted to Indonesia.
Customs at Jakarta impounded containers holding mixed up paper,
cardboard, plastics and cans from UK households.
They tipped off Real Story who went and found the rubbish was clearly
British and falsely described as waste paper.
Documents linked it to a company contracted to process recycling by
councils in the South of England.
 |
REAL STORY: HOW GREEN IS YOUR WHEELIE?
Monday, 5 December 2005
1930 GMT, BBC ONE |
According to the Environment Agency, about half of the 8m tons of green
bin material thrown out each year in the UK ends up overseas.
Contractors who export waste instead of processing it in the UK are not
breaking any law - as long as it is properly sorted and cleaned so that
foreign mills and factories can recycle it.
But the Indonesian authorities classified the 80,000 green bins worth
of material seen by Real Story as hazardous waste.
After checking the containers held up at Jakarta's Tanjung Priok docks,
the Real Story team went to the address given on the shipping documents as
the waste's final destination.
|
 I'll just go back to using the black bins I
suppose. What's the point in recycling? 
|
It led them to a closed down Japanese restaurant on the outskirts of
the city.
According to Indonesia's environment minister, the only possible
consequence of such a trail was that the rubbish from England would end up
dumped on his country.
The one recycling plant in Jakarta did not receive foreign rubbish and
was struggling to cope with the waste produced locally.
Rachmat Witoelar told Real Story: "Somebody has taken them [the English
residents who recycled] for a ride.
"It's against international law. They should be aware of that.
"They [the exporter] are trying to dump it somewhere when we are not
looking."
Councils taking action
As well as British newspapers and food wrappers, the Real Story team
who looked through the containers found mail addressed to residents in
Essex and London.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar says Indonesia
has enough waste of its own |
They returned some
of this to the original recipients.
"It's absolutely outrageous," said Jill Grace when reunited with a TV
magazine sent to her home in Islington and subsequently put in her green
bin.
"I'll just go back to using the black bins I suppose. They are not
being honest and truthful about the whole situation.
"What's the point? Why are we recycling?"
Islington and Essex councils said they were carrying out thorough
investigations into Real Story's findings and taking action to ensure that
waste sent for recycling was being properly processed.
The Environment Agency said recent national inspections of green bin
material being exported showed there was a problem.
"We found something in the region of 75% of the waste containers were
not satisfactory. They were not in accordance with the requirements for
export and they were stopped."
