By 2010, half the recoverable material in Britain’s dustbins will be recycled—that, at least, was the target set by Chris Patten, Secretary of State for the Environment. But he gave no clues as to how Britain should go about achieving it. While recycling enthusiasts debate the relative merits of different collection systems, it will largely be new technology, and the opening up of new markets, that makes Patten’s target attainable: a recycling scheme is successful only if manufacturers use the recovered materials in new products that people want to buy. The first question is how best to separate clean element—glass containers, plastics, and some paper and metal containers that is relatively clean when discarded—from mixed refuse. This clean element is the main target for Britain’s recyclers. The method of collection is important because manufacturers will not reuse collected material unless it is clean and available in sufficient quantities. A bewildering assortment of different collection schemes operates in the rest of Europe, and pilot schemes are now under way in many British cities. A realistic target for recycling mixed refuse is somewhere between 15 and 25 percent by weight, according to researchers at the Department of Trade and Industry’s Laboratory. Statistics compiled by researchers at the University of East Anglia show that Britain could almost halve the total weight of domestic waste going to landfill by a combination of "collect” schemes(such as doorstep collections for newspapers),"bring” schemes(such as bottle banks)and plants for extracting metals. This estimate makes two important assumptions. One is that the government will bring in legislation to encourage the creation, of markets for products made from recycled materials, especially glass, paper and plastics. The other is that industry will continue to introduce new technology that will improve both the products and the techniques used to separate recoverable materials from mixed refuse.