The environmental benefits of recycling are clear. It reduces the need for landfill sites, and we should remember that to meet EU targets, we must reduce waste to landfill sites by 25 per cent. by 2010, and by 65 per cent. by 2020. We must reduce the need for incinerators and their potential for giving off cancer-inducing dioxins. We need to protect the earth's resources, which continue to be plundered, and we must reduce the potential for pollution. There are clear cost benefits.
Recycling can create jobs.
Wastewatch, the organisation that prepared a report on the subject, found that a 30 per cent. The benefits are evident. The question is how much recycling is already undertaken. In Shrewsbury, we are above average, with 11 per cent. My congratulations go to Shrewsbury and Atcham borough council on what it has achieved, but I know that the council wants to achieve far more.