Speaking at a conference on recycling incentives in London on Thursday, specialist Dominic Hogg, of Eunomia Consulting, said that the value of incentive schemes was “questionable”.
After studying incentive schemes in 2004 and analysing results of a recent 3.1 million Defra pilot study (see letsrecycle.com story), Mr Hogg suggested that changes to service delivery, rather than incentive schemes, achieved higher levels of recycling.
He said: “It is questionable whether schemes justified themselves in terms of cost. There were ways of achieving results such as changing service configuration that would have been cheaper. Some schemes seemed to be compensating for a low level of service delivery.”
Speaking at the event organised by the Resource Recovery Forum, MEL Research and Brighton University he added: “We are not in the era of cheap disposal any more. There will be a need to look at tools that deliver changes in a serious cost effective way.”
Charging
Mr Hogg suggested that direct charging for waste was a more cost-effective solution to increase recycling, which “simply recovered the cost of a service in a different way” from Council Tax.
By citing examples in Flanders, where charging has dramatically reduced waste arisings, he said that low charges combined with reduced council tax would provide a reliable source of income.
He said: “you need sensible price setting. For instance, in Flanders they do not charge above 0.15 Euros per kg for waste because otherwise you get problems with fly-tipping.”
However, Mike Tregent, of the environment agency expressed reservations. Questioning Mr Hogg he said: “We are not the most law-abiding country in the world and if you charge you will increase fly tipping and people sticking stuff in other people's bins.”
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