Lord Speaker's Competition Report - young people tackle waste reduction

The House of Lords Sub-Committee on Waste Reduction has recently examined how the amount of waste produced in the UK can be reduced and asked to hear young people's views on the issue. A report summarising their views and offering recommendations has now been submitted to the House of Lords.

The House of Lords, with the support of the Lord Speaker and in conjunction with the Hansard Society, called for 11 - 18 year olds to submit their views on waste reduction to the Sub-Committee in creative ways. The work sent in was entered into the Lord Speaker's What a Waste! Competition and the young people behind the best entry in Key stage 3, Key stage 4 and Key stage 5 attended the House of Lords to present their ideas last month.

The winning entries represent just a handful of the excellent ideas which were submitted to the competition and as such a What a Waste! competition report, summarising all the work entered has been compiled. To ensure that the views of all young people who took part are heard by the Sub Committee, this report has now been submitted to Lord O'Neill for response.

Key recommendations from the What a Waste! Competition Report include:

The Plastic Problem
There are inadequate plastic recycling facilities in the UK. Those which exist are not used effectively because recycling plastic is not seen as cost effective by some local councils. As such, local councils should work together to pool recycling facilities and central government should encourage and fund this activity.

School Schemes
School centred schemes are a useful and realistic way to involve large numbers of people in waste reduction schemes. Peer education about waste and recycling within schools improves not only the school environment, but can also have a trickle down effect to the local community. Schools should use student lead assemblies to promote waste reduction and appoint teams of students to be responsible for waste and recycling within the school.

The full What a Waste! Competition Report is available for download here: What a Waste! Competition Report.pdf