The issue centres on the fact that waste collected from small business and shops is currently classed as ‘municipal waste'. Therefore, it falls under the landfill allowance trading scheme (LATS) which gradually reduces the amount of allowances councils receive to send biodegradable waste to landfill.
Local authorities and the County Surveyors' Society – the representative body for local authority chief officers – are urging the government to either adjust the allowances, review the penalties or change the definition of municipal waste for the purposes of LATS in a bid to help businesses to recycle more material.
Julia Barrett, chair of the County Surveyors' Society Waste Panel, told letsrecycle.com: “If waste comes into the ownership of the local authority it becomes municipal waste and that would then fall under their LATS obligation. With economic and population growth and reducing amounts of LATS, the last thing we want to do is to fill up that headroom and need to have to go and buy allowances to cover it.”
Ms Barrett said that some councils currently offered to take recyclable material from businesses as they did not have to dispose of any residual waste and it therefore did not infringe on their landfill allowances.
However, she claimed councils should look to use their infrastructure to offer a more comprehensive service.
She said: “There is an argument to take the trade waste recycling as it makes percentages look good but I don't think that is particularly customer-focused. As a smaller business I would want to deal with one partner who is delivering a full service. It would seem to me that if they could get away with having one contract instead of two they would be happier to do that.”
Ms Barrett claimed that many big waste companies were often not interested in collecting waste from SMEs as economies of scale were often required to make it financially attractive.
Councils
For a number of years, councils have criticised the existing landfill allowance trading scheme (LATS) for creating a “conflict” in which they are supposed to encourage businesses to recycle under the Waste Strategy for England 2007 but have to pay for exceeding their LATS allowances.
In August this year, a number of local authorities highlighted the issue in their responses to a Local Government Association (LGA) request for suggestions on ways to improve the quality of life under its Sustainable Communities Act.
Southampton city council claimed that there was currently “no financial incentive” for councils to collect from small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and that there should be the allocation of additional landfill allowances to take into account commercial waste activity.
It stated: “WasteDataFlow information can distinguish between municipal waste from commercial sources and domestic sources. It could therefore be used to adjust the existing 2020 LATS target to incorporate new commercial waste customers thereby still encouraging local authorities to meet landfill reduction targets but also encouraging further recycling by local businesses.”
In its submission, city of York council claimed that the development of recycling services for local businesses was “hindered by the inclusion of commercial waste in LATS”. It called on the government to “remove this barrier to service development” by making adjustments to LATS targets for when a council can demonstrate it is offering sustainable services to businesses.
The suggestions – which were made alongside other proposals such as a reduction in business rates and the establishment of a minimum standard of broadband access – will now be drawn into a list of proposals by the LGA and submitted to communities secretary John Denham at the end of the year. Mr Denham will then have the final say on which proposals are given the go ahead.
Review
Despite these concerns, Defra announced at the end of June that plans to consult on revising the definition of municipal waste – which may have seen the “disincentive” for councils removed – had been delayed.
A statement released by Defra said: “We had planned to have issued a second consultation on changing the definition of municipal waste used in the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) by now but further work is still required, including working with the Welsh Assembly Government.
“Our intention remains to implement any changes ahead of the start of the 2010/11 scheme year but the consultation will now be after the summer.
“It remains our intention addition as part of the same consultation to consult on the future of the duty contained in section 32 of the WET Act for authorities in two tier areas to produce Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategies (JMWMS),” it continued.
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