A new voluntary commitment that aims to improve businesses access to waste and recycling collections by setting out best practice principles for local authorities running trade waste services has been launched today (October 19).
The Local Authority Business Recycling and Waste Collection Commitment outlines 12 principles of best practice that local authorities can use to tailor services to local businesses, such as the need to make recycling easy, provide value for money and continually improve services through feedback.
Councils will be encouraged to sign up to the commitment, which outlines the level of service businesses, and in particular small and medium enterprises (SMEs), can expect. It includes a pledge to provide regular and reliable services, while councils will also be able to commit to offer advice on waste prevention, how businesses can reuse goods and how they can access certain household waste recycling centres.
The commitment was first mooted in the June 2011 government Waste Review, and has been developed by Defra along with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Local Government Group.
It mirrors an earlier commitment outlining best practice principles for household waste collections. This was launched by WRAP in 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story) and 111 councils are now signed up to it.
Unveiling the business waste commitment, the recently-appointed waste and recycling minister Lord Taylor said: This deal will bring much needed relief for smaller businesses that want to do the right thing but are struggling to get a decent recycling service.
For the first time weve got solid agreement between councils and businesses to make it easier and more cost effective for smaller firms to recycle more and improve their resource efficiency.
Almost half of councils across the country offer local businesses a recycling services and Defra believes that boosting these rates even further by helping them use waste as a resource will provide a valuable contribution to the green economy while cutting waste to landfill.
Recent Defra research shows that businesses across the UK have the potential to save up to 18 billion a year by taking steps to reduce waste and building on the recycling rates of over 50% already achieved by SMEs.
FSB
The FSB welcomed the commitment, highlighting research indicating that 95% of businesses would recycle more if they had better access to recycling facilities.
FSB environment committee chair David Caro said: The FSB has long called for small firms to have better access to recycling facilities and so now we call on all local authorities to sign up to the commitment.
For the Local Government Group, councilor David Parsons, the chair of the Local Government Association environment board, stressed the work that councils were already doing to provide affordable waste and recycling services to businesses.
But, he added: The new voluntary commitment gives councils the opportunity to send a clear signal to local businesses about the support and services they can provide. Local authorities and their residents have worked together to achieve a nearly four fold increase in the rate of household recycling in the past decade. We hope to help businesses replicate that success.
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