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Nearly 100 million tonnes of waste is generated each year in the UK. The majority of this goes to landfill, thereby generating damaging greenhouse gases such as methane which is considered to be a major contributing factor to climate change.

The Government has recognised that our dependence on landfill must be reduced by announcing in their Waste Strategy for England in 2007 that "Our aim must be to reduce waste by making products with fewer natural resources. We must break the link between economic growth and waste growth. Most products should be re-used or their materials recycled." To achieve this goal, a number of initiatives have been proposed, including:

• Consulting with industry to reduce commercial waste.
• Setting standards for reducing packaging by producers.
• Promoting an opt-out mechanism for direct mail companies.
• Commitment to reduce public waste and to stimulate demand for recycled products.
• Encouraging households to produce less waste and recycle more.
• The provision of investment into new infrastructure.

The Government believes that these and other initiatives will help to reduce the UK's annual greenhouse gas emissions by 10 million tonnes by 2020.

The proposals announced by the Waste Strategy for England Paper in 2007 all point to heavy investment into local government waste and recycling facilities and as such will result in thousands of jobs being created in the industry over the next decade.