A new report from the UK Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (INCPEN) reveals that, whilst both educational and socially productive, the domestic recycling of bottles, cans and paper has only a small positive impact on the environment. The relative impacts of household activities are:

• Production of household goods - 34%
• Heating homes and hot water - 24%
• Personal transport - 15%
• Food production - 8%
• Use of household appliances - 6%
• Storing and cooking food - 5%
• Education and leisure activities - 4%
• Packaging of goods and food - 3%
• Transporting and retailing goods - 2%

INCPEN recommends domestic consumers to:

• reduce their use of private cars

• choose more fuel efficient cars (switching from a 4-wheel drive to a saloon, for example, saves in one year the same amount of energy as recycling all the family’s bottles for 400 years)

• focus on the bigger impact by making energy savings at home and choosing goods and foods wisely to avoid generating so much waste

INCPEN recommends industry to:

• minimise overall waste by producing a wider range of pack sizes

• provide longer life goods capable of repair (thus reducing the materials and energy used in manufacture)

Ed.- Regarding goods and food this would include selecting those with the least packaging and which have been made close to the point of purchase (to reduce pollution from road and air transport). In Environment & Health 15 we reported that swapping old cars for new was not necessarily good. New cars, for instance, tend to be heavier than old cars (and thus consume more fuel). Both scrapping old cars and building new ones cause carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

When the research team readjusted the Dutch emission figures they found that reducing average car age would increase overall CO2 emissions by 4%. Their advice is that, environmentally, it is better for individuals to keep their old cars, possibly fitting them with catalytic converters to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds, until manufacturers increase fuel-burning efficiency.