In 2008 Bristol was acknowledged as the most sustainable city in the UK. Forum for the Future, which carries out the annual survey, was particularly impressed by the city's recycling rate of around 37%. Per capita, the amount of waste sent to landfill has been reduced by 18% over the past five years.

While the city can still learn from the greenest European cities - like Copenhagen and Frankfurt - the recycling of kitchen and garden waste in particular is exemplary.

This drive to reduce landfill is partly motivated by the city council's need to meet tough EU goals, but the local authority has found willing partners in the business community and voluntary sector. Chemical Recovery of Avonmouth has been recycling industrial solvents and fuels since the 1960s, while the SOFA Project and the Children's Scrapstore put waste to positive social use.

As regulations imposed by the EU become more stringent, so new ventures spring up to use the new resources they create. Saved from landfill, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is now being put to good use by REVAMP. Creative responses to waste include Bristol Recycled, an enterprise that employs local women to make locally designed shopping bags from recycled textiles.

Education is one area in which Bristol has a wealth of expertise. Based at the Create Centre, where local people can explore a permanent exhibition on waste and its recovery, the Recycling Consortium has been spreading the word for many years, with innovative schemes like the Real Nappy Project; today, as part of Resource Futures, it works with local authorities and business on a national scale.

Bristol is also home to the Community Recycling Network, the national umbrella organisation for community-based, not-for-profit and co-operative waste management groups which work in reduction, re-use and recycling.