The head of the Defra's waste programme has acknowledged the need to "revise and review" the department's existing models on waste arisings in the wake of a fall in volumes caused by the economic downturn.

Giving the keynote address at the 21st Century Waste seminar in London on Friday (March 20), Daniel Instone said that a decline in waste arisings caused by the knock-on effects of the recession meant that Defra would now have to investigate its implications.

Mr Instone said: "A very interesting question is that with the economic downturn, waste has gone down and the question is how long that will last and we are working out where that leaves us."

Mr Instone, who was giving an update on the Waste Strategy for England 2007, explained that Defra had attempted to "decouple waste growth from economic growth" and that it would be interesting to see how long the current decline in arisings lasted as a result.

And, responding to a question posed by Dr Michael Warhurst of Friends of the Earth on what this might mean for its modelling, Mr Instone said: "Clearly this is something we need to measure further and any model is only as good as the figures you feed into it."

"In terms of understanding a change it is meaning we have to revise and review given the economic downturn," he added.

Strategy

At the event, which was organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport (WEET) Forum, Mr Instone said that recycling was on a "particularly encouraging upturn" but said he was unsure whether the UK would meet EU landfill diversion targets beyond 2010.

Mr Instone also noted the performance of England in relation to the rest of Europe using figures published by the European Commission's statistical body Eurostat (see letsrecycle.com story).

He said: "The general theme is if we look at the amount of landfill we have got we can see that we are not as good as others and a lot of new countries aren't doing as well as us."

"We have got a reasonable amount of recycling and we have also got less energy-from-waste than other countries but it doesn't say what form of technology they are using specifically. If we look at the waste we are producing we are sitting more in the middle of the places, I think we are well placed," he added.

Effect

In addition, Mr Instone identified the positive effect that intervention methods such as the Landfill Tax were having on local authority performance but said that it was not clear yet whether the Landfill Tax would continue to rise beyond 2010/11. Mr Instone also mooted the possible idea of outright bans on the landfilling of some materials.

He said: "There are a lot of things on regulation that we are trying but we are also thinking about putting some materials for controlled landfill bans."

Acknowledging the effect of the current economic climate on waste, Mr Instone explained that the recession currently "loomed large". He said that Defra had identified four key areas that the economic slowdown could impact, in: the demand for recyclables, financing of infrastructure, local authority budgets, and waste minimisation efforts.

Discussing where the Waste Strategy would now be headed, Mr Instone added that the Department would look to continue its work with producers and that a statement on packaging would be published "quite soon".

Speakers

Also speaking at the event, Phillip Ward, director for local government services at WRAP, explained the principles behind a ‘good recycling service' and said that, despite there being only 13 core collection models, "hundreds of variations" were being practiced throughout the country.

Mr Ward said that this presented a barrier to improving the UK's recycling performance, as people wanted to recycle more but were often confused by their collection systems and that it was important for this to be countered.

He said: "If one third put stuff in the bin where it can be recycled because they aren't sure that it ought to be, one of the issues which is really central to all this is people are confused. They want to have simple systems and they don't know what they are entitled to expect."

And, in a session on producer responsibility, Julian Walker-Palin, head of corporate policy and sustainability and ethics at ASDA, claimed that the supermarket giant may have hit a "glass ceiling" in terms of light weighting packaging to reduce waste.

He explained that, although the company had managed to minimise waste, a degree of packaging would be essential to prevent food from spoiling before it had even left the store.

He said: "We have taken 47,000 tonnes of packaging weight off the packaging and, bearing in mind that we need to protect the product, we have hit a glass ceiling. If we continue to lightweight the packaging it is going to lead to a lot of food waste."