Councils seek stronger producer responsibility

In its response to a joint Defra/Welsh Assembly Government consultation, which closed last week, on how the Directive should be implemented in the UK (see letsrecycle.com story) the body, which represents council recycling officers, explained that, while it backed Defra's general approach, it had concerns over the cost impact of its plans for local authorities.

Under the revised Directive, which the UK must transpose by December 12 2012, member states must reach a 50% household waste recycling rate by 2020, and, by 2015, councils must collect, at least, paper, metal, plastic and glass from householders.

At the same time, member states are expected to apply a revised five-step waste hierarchy to all their waste and recycling policies, with waste prevention deemed the most desirable option and disposal as a “last resort”.

Andrew Craig, principal policy officer at LARAC, explained in a letter accompanying the response that: “We have some concerns about the potential financial implications on local authorities and the communities they serve of achieving yet higher and more highly specified targets.”

“In particular, we would like to see producer responsibility playing a greater part in taking responsibility for the more sustainable management of the resources discarded by the consumers of their products,” he added.

Concerns

LARAC raised specific concerns about the cost implications of landfill bans for local authorities and said that it opposes additional targets being imposed on councils for specific materials.

Instead, it claimed that targets for packaging waste streams, which would increase the overall diversion of materials such as wood, plastics, glass and metals, needed to be achieved by obligated companies working with local authorities.

In particular, in light of the waste hierarchy in the revised Directive, it suggested that the government could give councils “additional powers” to require producers of waste to separate their waste into different fractions for recycling, energy recovery or composting.

It added that: “Initially this might apply to producers other than householders, but a new power might also be considered in relation to household waste.”

Producer responsibility

The revised Waste Framework Directive suggests that EU member states “may” take either legislative or non-legislative measures to introduce producer responsibility systems.

And, in its response, LARAC specifically suggested tyres, paint and textiles should be made subject to producer responsibility regimes.

Tyres

In terms of tyres, it called for the tyre industry to given “overall responsibility” for managing fly-tipped tyres, claiming that it would “reduce the need for public bodies to pay for their management and could make more resources available to the Environment Agencies for enforcement”.

Tyres have been banned from landfill since July 2006, but while the UK currently has a system of voluntary producer responsibility for waste tyres, there is no statutory responsibility on the sector to ensure they are recycled.

Textiles

LARAC claimed that, while reuse of “good quality used clothes” is carried out, a system of producer responsibility should be introduced for other textiles, explaining that the market for recycling these materials is “limited”.

It said that producer responsibility, such as producers developing outlets for lower grade waste textiles, would support the market and, by making importers of “cheap disposable” clothes responsible for their recycling, it would “militate against” less sustainable clothing production and help to encourage higher quality, more durable clothes.

“This would reduce the overall carbon impact of textiles,” it added.

A system of producer responsibility for textiles was introduced in France last year, and, in April 2008, Defra said it would look into the issue as part of the Sustainable Clothing Roadmap project (see letsrecycle.com story) as part of plans to address the million tonnes of clothing that is sent to landfill each year.

Paint

In terms of paint, LARAC pointed towards 'RePaint' initiatives which take unsold or unwanted paint and redistribute it to charities or consumer groups, claiming that “producer (or retailer?) responsibility would enable the economic and social benefits of RePaint schemes to be made more widely available and could work to the advantage of organisations that already voluntarily support such schemes.”

However, it stressed that any producer responsibility scheme should not be extended to “historical deposits” of unwanted paint.

Defra and the WAG have said they will publish a report summarising responses to the consultation, which closed on October 9, by January 4 2010, before beginning stage two of the transposition process – a consultation on the actual regulations the UK will use to implement the Directive.