Councils still uncertain over TEEP

The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations, which came into effect for businesses and councils from January 1, stipulate that materials such as paper, metal, plastic and glass must be collected separately if it is necessary to do so to encourage high quality of the recycling of the material.

Councils may continue to collect the material in a single ‘commingled’ stream, if it is possible to demonstrate that separate collections are not technically, environmentally or economically practicable (TEEP).

During a session at the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) Conference in Nottingham yesterday (October 14) – titled ‘Conforming with TEEP: Ten Months On’, Kay Cocks, partnership manager at the Staffordshire Waste Partnership and Dave White, waste services team leader at East Cambridgeshire district council discussed the effect of the regulations to date.

However, Miss Cocks expressed some concern over what she described as ‘uncertainty’ amongst some authorities over how the regulations will be policed and the looming threat of a legal challenge from pressure groups who may seek to dispute how councils collect recyclable materials.

She said: “Over the last few months, nobody has known what is going to happen. It has been time away from the day job which everybody is already doing.”

She added: “10 months on we can definitely say that the regulator has not been forthcoming with concerns. Campaign groups have not challenged us but I know that other authorities have been. There is a lot of uncertainty even though we are ten months in, we are still playing the waiting game.”

Assessment

Mr White, explained that East Cambridgeshire was among the first in the country to compile a ‘TEEP assessment’ to justify its position in relation to the regulations, when it opted to move from a source separate to a commingled kerbside collection system (see letsrecycle.com story).

He added that based on conversations with Environment Agency enforcement officials, there is ‘no appetite’ to pursue local authorities for failing to carry out separate collections, echoing comments made by the Agency’s waste stream assessment officer Mike Tregent at RWM last month (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr White also shared preliminary findings from an Environment Agency survey on the risk of non-compliance with the regulations, full details of which are due to be published later in the autumn.

The findings from the survey of 321 local authorities in England, which had responses from all but 39 of those polled, showed that around 221 councils have undertaken TEEP assessments, while 74 expect to complete or sign off an assessment before the end of 2015.

Mr White commented that some authorities appear to have opted not to undertake an assessment and these may be the subject of closer scrutiny by the Agency when it comes to assess compliance with the regulations.