THE amount of rubbish London recycles has gone up almost four times compared to the poor record’ eight years ago. We were was one of Britain’s poorest regions for being green’ but have now improved our recycle rate by 29 per cent

By Mike Brooke

THE amount of rubbish London recycles has gone up almost four times compared to the 'poor record' eight years ago, according to latest Environment Department figures.

We were was one of Britain's poorest regions for being 'green' in 2000-01, with just nine per cent recycled.

Latest statistics this week shows a 29 per cent improvement, with landfill waste is down to 49 per cent compared to 72 per cent back then.

Even Tower Hamlets in London's East End has done well, after being bottom of Britain's local authority 'list of shame' two years running at 13 per cent last year and only seven per cent the year before.

It has since cut household rubbish sent to landfill sites by almost 11 per cent, the best annual improvement in the country, with recycling now at more than 19 per cent.

But neighbouring Newham is still struggling at recycling only 15-and-a-half per cent.

Other local authorities in East London are improving. Hackney now recycles almost 23 per cent, Waltham Forest almost 28 per cent, the City of London 34 per cent and the East London Waste Authority 23 per cent.

Environment Minister Dan Norris said: "This show we're moving down the right road to becoming a 'zero waste' nation. We're getting better at recycling, but still need to think about reducing what we use and reusing what we can."

So the Environment Department has started a recycle campaign to encourage households to think about making better use of everything around them, reusing what they have.