However, ministers' intentions to make these incentives “revenue-neutral” for Council Taxpayers have been rejected by half of councils, waste management firms and environmental groups surveyed.
Defra published the responses to its consultation yesterday, summing up the views of 171 respondents. The consultation was launched in May along with the new English waste strategy (see letsrecycle.com story).
Of the 164 stakeholders giving views on the incentive schemes, 80.5% agreed that councils should be given new powers to provide financial incentives to household recyclers. It was also largely agreed that this should be statutory power and should be decided at a local level in order to best change householder behaviour.
Department officials explained: “There was strong support for local authorities to be given the power to use financial incentives to encourage householders to reduce and recycle their waste. Stakeholders were also generally pleased that Government had proposed a power rather than a duty. This approach recognised that financial incentives may be useful in some but not necessarily all local authorities.”
Charging
Despite support for financial incentives in general, however, only 36% of those who responded agreed that a financial incentive with “net neutral impact upon local residents” was better than introducing a localised waste charge or doing nothing, with 50% rejecting the idea.
In particular, council chiefs at the Local Government Association said that legislation should permit local authorities to introduce a revenue-neutral scheme should they wish, but suggested that these could be complex and potentially difficult to administer and explain to the public.
The Chartered Institutes of Wastes Management added that it favoured localised charging schemes over financially-neutral incentive schemes, because it had been proven to reduce waste on the continent. The organisation suggested piloting revenue neutral schemes alongside charging schemes to see which achieved the best recycling and waste minimisation rates.
Many councils suggested that the government's definition of revenue neutrality should allow for costs of both setting up and running schemes, with some calling for the schemes to cover the whole cost of their waste services.
The report said: “There were concerns that, if all money collected by the authority mist be returned to residents in full, savings accruing to authorities might not be sufficient to cover costs, particularly of setting up and administering the scheme, at least in the short to medium term.”
Other concerns raised by the consultation included the complexity of administering any kind of financial incentive schemes at civic amenity sites, whether there were markets for increasing levels of recyclables and how the scheme would be successfully enforced.
Some respondents added that the £30-£50 level of charges and rebates given as examples in the consultation document may be too low in some areas to incentivise behavioural change.
Defra is now expected to publish its response to the findings of the consultation, before it incorporates its final proposals into the Climate Change Bill, due to enter Parliament next month (see letsrecycle.com story).
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