Last year was a big year for the environment, as the United Nations summit on climate change acted as a finally to a year which was highlighted by environmental news. People are finally starting to realize that climate change is a real threat and that action must be taken sooner rather than later. Although most claim the summit was a failure it did bring the issue to the attention of the world which will hopefully spark some change as countries and local government realize that any real change is going to have to come at the local level. The UK is one nation which took a lot of heat over its inability to reach many of the waste management and recycling goals of the European Union.
Since then the UK government has stepped up its efforts by pressuring local councils to come up with better and innovative ways to get their residents to recycled more and waste less. It appears as though the efforts are paying off as recycling rates have actually gone up dramatically over the last year and many businesses in the recycling and waste management industry are claiming record numbers. According to the Environmental Exchange, a record one million tonnes of plastic were traded over in 2009. The Environmental exchange is an online trading platform in the UK for packaging recovery certificates, which help producers of plastic take responsibility for the products that they manufacture.
This trend of putting the responsibility back on the producers has been applied to multiple industries as the UK tries to find any way to promote recycling.
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