Following a consultation, the government confirmed on Monday May 15 that local authority recycling targets for 2007/08 would remain stationary, but the minimum target of 18% would be increased to 20% (see letsrecycle.com story).
” Why set statutory targets when these local authorities are doing so well off of their own backs?“
– Defra
However, many of those councils set the 2005/06 target of 18% several years ago are now achieving much higher rates, some as high as 50%, and are not happy with being deemed “poor performing”.
Defra has defended its decision to increase the target across the board to 20% because it feels it would be unfair to punish those councils that had achieved impressive recycling increases since the targets were set by giving them higher targets.
Punish
A spokesman for Defra told letsrecycle.com today: “What we didn't want to do was punish those that have done well in the interim by increasing their targets to 30%, while others were only increased to 20%.
“Instead we raised the bar to 20% across the board in order to cut the gap between the top and bottom performing council's,” he added.
And he added that Defra was “extremely happy” with those local authorities that had already increased recycling rates well above the 20% minimum and were setting themselves higher targets internally.
“Why set statutory targets when these local authorities are doing so well off of their own backs?” he questioned.
The Defra spokesman said that new recycling targets were likely to be included in waste strategy review, which could see the highest target of 30% increased and that the strategy would have a longer term outlook than the current 2007/08 aims.
” We (Rushcliffe council) should really be working to a target of 60% now “
– Kevin Pickaver, Rushcliffe council
Increase
But several top performing local authorities have said that they would actually like to see their targets increased, some to double the current high target of 30%.
Rushcliffe council, one of the local authorities that has just had its target increased to 20%, has said that initial indications show that it achieved a recycling rate of 50% in 2005/06.
Kevin Pickaver, project manager at Rushcliffe, said that he understood that the increase was aimed at helping inner city local authorities that will struggle to achieve high recycling rates. But he said that his authority and many others would like to see higher targets set.
“Inner city councils are never realistically going to achieve a recycling rate of 50%,” he said. “But targets need to be set to the area, perhaps a target of 50% with inner cities reduced by 10%.”
“But there needs to be a matrix set up to work out targets based on the area, for instance we should really be working to a target of 60% now,” he added.
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