Councils warn against cutting WRAP funding

The comments from the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) come in response to Defras consultation on the review of its funding for WRAP in England, launched last month (see letsrecycle.com story).

Established in 2000, WRAP helps businesses to reduce waste, develop sustainable products and use resources in an efficient way. It is funded by Defra, the devolved administrations and the EU. In the current financial year, Defra is providing the bulk of the organisations funding – 25.74 million – but is seeking to reduce this.

In the consultation, Defra seeks views on what work by WRAP is valued the most and where it may be able to move to a private sector-funded approach or reduce the organisations funding. It also asks what appetite there is for those who benefit from WRAP to pay for its services.

Best practice

In response, LARAC says that WRAP has produced a lot of really good best practice advice and tool kits for industry, particularly local authorities and more recently small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It singles out WRAPs food waste reduction campaign, Love Food Hate Waste, for particular praise.

Defending the role of the organisation, it says: There needs to be a cross-cutting organisation, such as WRAP, who are able to pull together best practice and disseminate it in an effective manner.

However, LARAC says that it is hard to say if any of WRAPs activities should be treated as less of a priority, as it says that work in areas less important to councils, such as construction waste, are still important, while WRAPs work on ecodesign helps to ultimately reduce the volumes of wastes which local authorities handle.

The organisation goes on to say there is very little appetite on the part of those who benefit from WRAPs advice and support to make a financial contribution in return.

Reluctance to pay

It says: In the current economic climate there is a reluctance to pay for any advice, particularly in SMEs and a return on investment in principle, while logical in theory, raises too many issues and risks for people asking for advice.

Commenting on the impact of funding for the organisation being reduced, it says: In the current climate there could be wide-ranging indirect effects.

“We are a nation need to deliver a circular economy and it is LARACs view at this time that it will not be delivered by purely market driven forces, and therefore needs the interaction of a well structured and effective cross cutting organisation such as WRAP.

• The LARAC Conference and Celebration Awards 2013 takes place in Nottingham on October 16-17, packed with industry leading speakers and recognising hard work in the recycling sector. Early bird discounts for the event expire at the end of June.