Coalition tensions, policy uncertainty and the threat of a loss of support to UKIP all seem to have been swept aside by May’s somewhat unexpected General Election result.
So too the waste sector has moved on in those 24 months, and it was good to see waste and recycling back at least on the fringe agenda at the Conference, having not featured at all in the last few years.
On Sunday night around 40 delegates gathered at Manchester’s Town Hall to hear the thoughts of Rory Stewart, the new Defra minister in charge of waste at Defra, on the future of the sector. The fringe session, hosted by Unilever and the think tank Bright Blue, also featured Matthew Pencharz of the Greater London Authority and WRAP’s Liz Goodwin.
In what transpired to be a candid conference session, Mr Stewart spoke at length about his desire to establish a more harmonised recycling system across England, and have councils sign up to one of around four or five different recycling schemes.
Debate
Criticism of the wealth of different recycling collection schemes in England and the rest of the UK is nothing new, and many will no doubt welcome the minister diving in to such an issue. It was refreshing to see a government minister talk openly and passionately about recycling.
However, despite many householders and businesses bemoaning the lack of consistency across the country over what local authorities will collect and in what containers, it has largely been accepted that decisions like these should remain at a local level. Even Eric Pickles, who battled so-called ‘bin barons’ during his time in the Cabinet, dared not dip his toe into this particular debate.
By all accounts Mr Stewart is an ambitious politician, and in his first role in office he’ll be looking to leave a mark, but, as Mr Pickles learned through his ultimately fruitless £250 million weekly waste fund, councils will not gladly give up their autonomy over waste collections.
The availability of funding is likely to be crucial to this debate, and despite the promise of more control over business rates, councils will no-doubt be hard pressed to find large sums of money that could be needed to oversee any major changes to services.
Issues around councils meeting their legal requirements will also remain in the background, with many having carried out costly TEEP assessments to ensure that they do not fall foul over the laws on separate collection. Further changes could muddy the waters still.
Whatever the outcome on consistent collections, Mr Stewart appears to be open to discussion on waste and recycling, a move that will no doubt we welcomed across the sector.
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