LGA calls for joined up campaign on reuse

The comments came from Waltham Forest councillor Clyde Loakes, who serves as vice chairman of the LGAs Environment and Housing board and is chair of the organisations Reuse Commission which had its first meeting last week (October 31).

The Commission, which includes stakeholders from reuse organisations, the third sector and government, is to look at supply and demand issues surrounding reuse, and hopes to encourage public discussion around the issue.

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, councillor Loakes said there are significant opportunities for local authorities in the reuse market as a new generation of people are turning to reuse as a sustainable alternative to buying new products.

But, he said that stakeholders have yet to decide on a coherent strategy that will help to take the reuse agenda forward.

Engaging

He said: People are engaging with reuse more and more, whether through websites such as eBay or Freecycle, and the next step is to encourage this among retailers on the high street.

The British Heart Foundation, British Retail Consortium, Defra, WRAP, and the Furniture Reuse Network all had a presence at the meeting. There are lots of players with lots of little niches but there is no agreement on how to promote reuse on a national scale.

While there is a range of different interests, there was some good common ground and before long I think we will be able to deliver programmes and make some recommendations. It is refreshing to focus on something a bit further up the hierarchy. It is a start and finish commission; we have been given a remit and we must achieve goals set within that remit.

According to Cllr Loakes, the first meeting was an introductory session that focused on demand, different options for bulky waste collections, how major retailers could be convinced to promote reusable items and what incentives could be put in place to make them more competitive.

The Commission will meet again at the end of November, and is expected to issue its recommendations in early 2014. In the meantime, it is calling for examples and case studies of the efforts councils are making to increase the amount of material sent for reuse, particularly electrical and bulky products.

The LGA, which represents 412 local authorities across England and Wales, has stated the amount of material currently reused by councils is 165,000 tonnes or an estimated 1% of household waste.

And, according to the organisation there is potential to increase this through the 149,000 tonnes of electrical product waste and the vast majority of the 1.4 million tonnes of textiles, and 165,000 tonnes of furniture that are disposed of each year.

Response

The Commission was set up in response to recommendations published in LGAs Wealth from Waste report, which was published earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story).

The review, which was also chaired by Cllr Loakes, suggested local authorities could earn an extra 1 billion from waste by 2020 if the Government provided the necessary tools and investment.

The meeting also follows release of a Waste & Resources Action Programme study into resource efficient business models last month, which found consumers were interested in using repair, rental, and trade-in services for some electrical goods (see letsrecycle.com story).