The amount of waste that local authorities are recycling is continuing to increase across England but there are still wide regional differences according to the latest figures from DEFRA. It has produced the provisional estimates from its Municipal Waste Management Survey, which show a reduction in total waste and in the amounts sent to landfill.The results are based on information supplied by local authorities and cover the financial year 2003-2004. They show that the proportion of municipal waste being recycled or composted rose to 19 per cent from 15.6 per cent in the previous year. In the same period the proportion of waste incinerated for energy recovery remained at just under 9 per cent.

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The voluntary sector is being urged to create a fund to encourage larger organisations to work in partnership with smaller ones on certain projects. The call comes in a new report , “1+1 = 3. Does size really matter?, described as a scoping study of collaborative working.The study, the first of its kind in the UK, has been produced by NCVO’s Partnerships Team, with funding from the Home Office. It highlights how partnership working can benefit both large and small organizations and involved 70 organisations. It features eight in-depth case studies, as well as describing benefits, barriers, drivers and lessons that can be learned from collaborative working.

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The Government’s newly published strategy for sustainable development aims to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations. The strategy sets out principles for sustainable development and new shared priorities agreed across the UK, including the Devolved Administrations. It describes a new integrated vision building on the 1999 strategy – with stronger international and societal dimensions.The Government proposes a new approach to influencing behaviours based on recent research on what determines current patterns. It will focus on measures to enable and encourage behaviour change and to engage people, and ways in which the Government can lead by example. Where these are not sufficient to change entrenched habits, ways will be sought to catalyse changes.

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