hard work. And the huge variation in the rates of rejected recycling between different areas of the country can’t be explained by people in one area caring less than those in another area.

On average, five percent of recycling nationally was burnt or put into landfill last year, but Newham sent 33 percent of its recycling off to burn. Newham has the worst recycling rate in the country at a mere 14 percent of its total waste. The rest it mostly burns.

In Hackney it is nearly a fifth of recycling being sent to burn, but this is unsurprising when the council belongs to the North London Waste Authority which burns twice the amount that it recycles.

Climate emergency

If Labour and Liberal Democrat councils are serious about the climate emergency andProfile: Who are the Peshmerga? Published duration 12 August 2014

image copyright AFP image caption The Kurdish Peshmerga, many of them veterans, are spearheading the defence against IS militants in Iraq

The Peshmerga, whose name translates as "those who face death", are the Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. In recent weeks, they have been fighting Islamist militants of the Islamic State - formerly known as Isis - who seized large swathes of territory in the north.

Now thought to number around 190,000, the Peshmerga have their roots in groups of loosely organised tribal border guards in the late 1800s, but were formally organised as the national fighting force of the Kurdish people after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War One.

As the Kurdish nationalist movement grew,