Councils to be encouraged to pay people to recycle

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have published a document laying out their full programme for government which commits them to the policy, which was a key feature of the Conservative Party's pre-election manifesto.

Such a measure has already been trialled by the Conservative-run Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and by Halton borough council in Cheshire using the American rewards scheme RecycleBank with great success in raising recycling rates (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, it is unclear how much pressure councils will be under to go down this route and where the money will come from to introduce such schemes at a time of tight budgetary constraints.

The policy appears to override that previously advocated by the Liberal Democrats of variable charging, whereby people would be charged depending on how much waste they throw away.

The document says: “We will work towards a ‘zero waste' economy, encourage councils to pay people to recycle, and work to reduce littering.”

Elsewhere in its programme, the coalition government reiterates plans to “introduce measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion”, which were outlined last week (see letsrecycle.com story).

On the issue of energy, it also says:

• As part of the creation of a green investment bank, we will create green financial products to provide individuals with opportunities to invest in the infrastructure needed to support the new green economy.

• We will establish a full system of feed-in tariffs in electricity – as well as the maintenance of banded Renewables Obligation Certificates.

• We will seek to increase the target for energy from renewable sources, subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee

• We will give an Annual Energy Statement to Parliament to set strategic energy policy and guide investment.

• We will encourage community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced. We will also allow communities that host renewable energy projects to keep the additional business rates they generate.

Writing in the foreword, Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg said: “We both want to build a new economy from the rubble of the old. We will support sustainable growth and enterprise, balanced across all regions and all industries, and promote the green industries that are so essential for our future.

“This document shows how, with radical plans to reform our broken banking system and new incentives for green growth.”

CAA

Included among the items set to be abolished by the coalition government are comprehensive area assessments (CAAs), which replaced the comprehensive performance assessment in April 2009 as the Audit Commission's means of measuring local authority progress on issues such as waste management.

The coalition government announced that it would be scrapping the CAAs, as it intends to scale back the amount of inspections carried out on local authorities.