I join my hon. Friends the Members for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) and Enfield, West (Mr. Parkinson) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Trew) on his choice of topic and his succinct and eloquent disquisition in a House which deserves to be better attended.

My hon. Friend has indeed chosen to speak on an important topic. I am grateful for the contributions that have been made. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock rightly said that there could become a need for a war on waste. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West evidently had a most interesting lunch. It would appear that during the first course he received one or two shocks but that all was well because, towards the end of this entertaining meal, he at least had returned to a measure of optimism about the world's future.

I should like to give two statistics at the outset which indicate the dimensions of the problem in this country. Each year we produce in household waste approximately 14 million tons. That is growing at a rate of about 1 per cent. in weight but at a greater speed in volume due to the increase of packaging every year. Therefore, in 10 years it will be approximately 50 per cent. greater. At the same time, discounting colliery and electricity power station ash, we have 20 million tons of industrial waste which is also rapidly increasing.

Because of the increase in the sheer volume, complexity and, in some instances, toxicity of waste we have made arrangements, in the Protection of the Environment Bill now before Parliament, which the rules of Adjournment debates prevent my discussing, for a radical reorganisation of the whole of the waste collection and disposal business in this country. I assure the House that within the arrangements it will certainly be possible and, I am sure, desirable that more attention is given to the recovery of materials for re-use, for recycling where it is economically sensible to do that, and for the use of waste for reclamation purposes of all kinds.

I think that we need to be quite sure about our terminology. Words such as "recycling", "reclamation" and "reuse" cover a very broad area and sometimes mean different things to different people. They can mean the use of waste as a source of heat or in land reclamation. They can mean the salvaging of material for use again in its existing form, as with bottles, or the extraction of material from waste for use as a secondary material as with mixed waste paper or mixed ferrous scrap. They can also cover conversion into some other material, as with compost made from house refuse or aggregates made from incinerator clinker.

It is not possible in 10 minutes to do justice to all these aspects so I shall concentrate, as my hon. Friends have done, on one or two aspects of the problem. May I first attempt to put into perspective the substantial amount of material of various sorts that is at present being reclaimed by industry. The reclamation industry embraces more than 1,000 firms, mainly of small and medium size. I am glad to say that there is a Reclamation Industries Council which was formally constituted in 1971 and is now discussing a number of the industry's problems with the Department of Trade and Industry. We welcome this council because it provides a focal point of contact between the Government and industry.

My Department has a twofold interest in recycling. It stems first from our concern for the local authorities which involves us indirectly in waste collection and dispersal. Secondly, we have within the Department a general responsibility for the control and reduction of pollution, including the treatment of wastes before disposal. My Department is committed to achieving faster progress in all these areas. It is worth recording some of the facts. The amount of ferrous scrap recycled by industry is worth about £120 million a year. Rather more than half the ferrous scrap consumed in steel furnaces is now derived from reclaimed and recycled material.

Non-ferrous metals recycled by the industry contribute about £230 million to £300 million a year to our balance of payments. This is a substantial amount. About 42 per cent. of our total consumption of copper is made up from secondary copper. The proportion of secondary lead has increased from 62 per cent. five years ago to over 64 per cent. today. The main source of secondary lead is storage batteries which have a limited life. In view of the growth in the number of motor vehicles, there can be little doubt that the proportion of recycled lead from this source will rapidly increase. The proportion of secondary tin his increased from about 10 per cent. in 1972 to about 18 per cent. today of our total refined tin production. The United Kingdom production of aluminium is about one-third of our total consumption.

Turning to other products, the amount of glass cullet—a technical term which will be familiar to my hon. Friends—that can be used in the manufacture of new glass is restricted by a number of technical considerations. I note what was said about "cloudy" glass, which is of some importance. The present figure of glass cullet is about 20 per cent. and this could be appreciably improved. The difficulty here is that uncontaminated cullet of the necessary quality is not easy to find.

The United Kingdom consumption of new rubber, natural and synthetic, is now running at about 450,000 tons a year, so there is no shortage of potential scrap. A large part of that will come from vehicle tyres. I have not been able to get any final figures, because the industry is fragmented, but I understand that about 70,000 tons of scrap are now used to produce about 25,000 tons of reclaim. It is plain that the industry is already recycling and reclaiming a great deal of material. We would all agree that we want to see more and I can assure the House that, through research and other ways of Government encouragement, we wish to see greater progress in this direction for the many good reasons my hon. Friend has given.

I now turn to the more difficult problem of the handling of local authority wastes. Here the central difficulty is segregation. Local authority wastes, almost by definition, consist of a large variety of putrescibles—tin, paper, ash, and so on—thrown together in a dustbin. The problem is difficult, but a great deal could be done if we could persuade the housewife to segregate her rubbish, or if councils could afford to pay their manual workers a proper price to separate the tins, bottles, plastic and paper. That involves a great deal of manual labour, and it is an unpleasant task in many respects. It is financially a formidable—indeed, daunting—proposition for any local council to take on.

Moreover, as our working party on refuse disposal said, however far we may progress with schemes of recovery, a considerable proportion of potentially reusable materials in our dustbins will always remain to be disposed of as refuse, because, while we are considering the merits of any reclamation proposal, we ought not to forget that salvaging material is not an end it in itself. The secondary materials that one salvages must be wanted, and they must be able to be produced at an economic price to those to whom they go.

In some cases manufacturers are reluctant to use reclaimed material because of the impurities which could prevent their products from achieving the required standard of performance or purity. In addition, there are other difficulties, such as the uncertainty of supplies which depend on someone else's output of wastes.

Then there is the question of costs. It is not always just a matter of providing money to subsidise a recycling process. The reclamation of a scarce material may in some cases require a greater use of other natural resources, such as energy, which are as scarce, and, in fact, are a positive drawback to what is sought to be achieved. The question whether reclamation should be carried out is a complex matter which needs to be assessed very carefully.

My hon. Friends will know of the various working parties on the disposal of plastics, glass, paper and tin boxes. If my hon. Friends have not had an opportunity to study the reports that are available in some cases—and others will be available shortly—I shall be glad to send them copies.

May I now try briefly to deal with some of the specific points which my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford recommended to the House. He wants to see a great deal more research. A lot of research is under way at both Government and industrial establishments. I was interested to hear what he said about the need for more statistical compilation. I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. I assure him that the new county councils, with their new responsibilities under the Local Government Act and with the new powers contained in the Bill for the protection of the environment, will be able to do a much better statistical job in the future than has been done in the past.

We have also almost completed a review of all tips in the country. It is a most extensive review, and it will provide the Government with a very much better statistical base on which to make our judgment. We shall make the information available to local authorities.

My hon. Friend spoke about publicity. I think that he has tonight contributed to that by launching this debate. He also spoke about financial incentives, but I was grateful for his moderation in not proposing additional expenditure. I assure my hon. Friend that my officials and I shall study what he said. He will understand that this is not an easy matter. In the end, ways of recycling must have a commercially viable purpose, and I believe that industry and the Government working together can do a much better job in the future than has been done in the past.