Author information: Ray Georgeson has been involved in recycling since 1980, initially as a local Friends of the Earth campaigner and volunteer on recycling collections, and professionally since 1991 primarily in the third sector and Government-funded agencies. He is Director of Policy and Evaluation at the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a post he has held since WRAP's creation in 2000. Before that, Ray was Chief Executive of Waste Watch from 1996-2000, during which time he served on the Government's Market Development Group, the report of which in 1999 led to the creation of WRAP. He was appointed MBE for services to sustainable waste management in the Millennium Year Honours List. It is often heard that a healthy industry is one in which there is much debate about ideas and strategies.
On that score, our recycling and resource management sector is certainly a healthy industry. Some may say that, as it is still growing and developing, it is sometimes seen as an ‘immature' industry, one which finds itself heavily influenced by the ebb and flow of Government policy, regulation and other pressures.
This is often still the case, and it is an industry that doesn't really speak with one clear, unified voice and is characterised by a range of companies and organisations all vying for attention and seeking to influence policy developments in particular ways.
Debate
Certainly, these debates are regularly played out and reported in the pages of letsrecycle.com in a way that charts the course of the sector as it picks its way through the minefield of issues that present themselves.
If those mythical ‘aliens from another planet' were to log on to letsrecycle.com, I wonder what they would make of the debates that rage about everything from the value (or otherwise) of co-mingled recycling collections versus source separated collections, the quality and destination of materials being exported for recycling, the delays and confusion that surrounded the options on the implementation of the WEEE Directive, the role and responsibilities of retailers, manufacturers and local councils with regard to the impact of packaging in the waste stream – and any other set of issues you care to mention.
Well, perhaps they would wonder how this sector that seems to like to debate and argue all the time, has managed at all to reach a 30% municipal recycling rate. Well it has, and often those arguments stem from a basis of strong commitment and purpose.
Success
That's what we have seen in recent years – with a combination of the sterling efforts of local councils driven by statutory recycling targets from Waste Strategy 2000, significant efforts to communicate the recycling message to the public through Recycle Now and local campaigns, and a market development approach led by WRAP that has produced more capacity to use recovered paper, plastic bottles, glass and green waste in new products and in expanded markets for compost. And all of this supported by significant new investments by the recycling industries in reprocessing and sorting capacity.
So, in so far as we started from a low baseline in 2000, we have had a strategic approach in England that has delivered real progress on recycling and means we are on the way to meeting our European Directive obligations and heading towards becoming part of the ‘European recycling society' that many talk about.
Despite the frustrations of many who feel that we haven't moved far enough, fast enough, I do think real progress has been made. But it hasn't been without its problems, and it's true that sometimes, our collection systems aren't as smart as they could be and may need a review.
And sometimes, our home markets for recycled materials have not developed as fast as collection schemes have grown, and so export has become more prominent at a time where China and the Far East are hungry for materials to feed their short term economic growth. And often, our policymakers have been slower than we would have liked at dealing with Directives and implementation, and they have fuelled uncertainty and slowed sown some investments. But none of these have been showstoppers and all of this provides legitimate learning as our industry grows and matures.
Pulling together
For grow and mature we must, as the next set of challenges are even greater. For if we don't, then the prospect of being overtaken by other developments is more possible than perhaps some realise.
Public opinion is still very supportive of recycling but is obviously open to influences. Recycle Now commissions recycling awareness and behaviour tracking surveys from GFK. In the last survey, 50% of the public had seen positive news stories about recycling. In the same survey, 12% had seen negative stories, up from 8% six months earlier. This may not be a big change, especially as only 1% said they had stopped recycling as a result of seeing negative stories, but there is no room for complacency.
Defra's (relatively) new Waste Strategy has a clear intention to further significantly increase recycling and composting rates in England. But at the same time, we have seen the removal of direct statutory recycling targets for local councils, replaced with Local Area Agreements (LAAs) in which there are few waste indicators, and they are not mandatory options in the package of indicators councils must choose as part of their LAA.
We also are seeing a scale back in Defra's programme spending on recycling as part of their drive to set a ‘balanced budget' in which they are better able to pay for the unforeseen agricultural and natural disasters that keep hitting that department's spend. The new money in the Comprehensive Spending Review for Defra is all bound up in PFI credits – £2bn worth mind you – which will inevitably steer towards large scale waste disposal infrastructure unless councils and the recycling industries can respond creatively to the challenge of using this resource effectively to expand recycling and composting.
And in another corner of Government, the Planning Reform Bill and its proposed Infrastructure Planning Commission may have the effect of ‘fast tracking' very large scale waste disposal facilities that meet the need to divert waste from landfill, but further run the risk of such developments ‘crowding out' the sustainable growth of recycling and composting.
Weaved into this particular mix is a proposal for a renewed effort by Government to raise a public debate on the importance of waste disposal facilities, featuring a new PR and communications campaign on this issue in the New Year.
So, although a further significant ramp up of our recycling and composting performance is necessary and desirable, it is not a given – despite the clear environmental benefits from recycling in terms of reduced landfill and carbon emissions.
A divided and confused recycling sector runs the risk of missing the opportunity to expand even further and maximise the environmental gains possible from its activities, in the face of a concerted effort by others to capture the public's attention -and their resources – as the business of ‘alternative waste treatment' starts to see a major opportunity present itself.
My plea to all of those engaged in heated debate about what is right and wrong in recycling is – in the heat of the argument, please don't lose sight of the prize. And that prize – of a much greater proportion of our wasted resources being sustainably recycled or composted rather than burned, gently dried or any combination thereof – is still worth striving for. The planet will thank you for it.
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