Waste Strategy 2000 was created as the government’s strategy for sustainable waste management in England and Wales until 2020. A small Defra team is now carrying out the first scheduled major review of the strategy and its work is due to be completed in about 12 months time.
At a Chartered Institution of Wastes Management event to discuss the review this week, Lindsay Cornish, Defra’s head of waste strategy said feedback from stakeholders had shown there was strong opinion that trade waste should be of significant importance in the new strategy.
Emphasis
She said: “There’s a strong suggestion that there needs to be much greater emphasis on non-municipal waste. Commercial waste is a very big concern and we need to look at this and particularly at how SMEs can deal with their waste more effectively.”
Ms Cornish also said that feedback indicated that there was an overwhelming need for greater direction and clarity. “There is a suggestion that everything has got too complicated, that there needs to be clearer timelines and clarity on delivery.”
”There needs to be a move beyond municipal waste “
– Alice Roberts, LGA executive manager for waste and environment
Alice Roberts, the LGA executive manager for waste and environment, also speaking at the event, agreed that there should be a move beyond municipal waste.
She called for that local authorities to be allowed more leadership and that if they had this they could help to reduce commercial and industrial waste.
Ms Roberts made reference to several local authorities that were already taking leadership with commercial and industrial waste issues.
She explained: “Hampshire has worked well on reducing the amount of non-municipal waste sent to landfill. Lancashire has allocated land for commercial and industrial waste treatment facilities and Shropshire is working with its contractor to separate more trade waste for recycling.”
Support
But, there was a clear view among local authorities attending the event was that they were not being given enough support in tackling waste from non-municipal sources.
Oliver Furbur, Waste Partnership and Strategy Officerat Norfolk county council, said there was not enough incentive for councils to tackle this waste at the moment.
“Because there’s no statutory requirement to deal with non-household waste it is difficult to sell the point to councillors when you are asking for funding.”
He said that working with the East of England regional assembly, Norfolk has managed to secure funding for a business waste coordinator to work with companies on reducing and managing their waste better.
“We do not have data on how much of a reduction there has been to landfill from businesses but we know that they are having less waste vehicle movements per day since we’ve been working with them,” said Mr Furbur.
He added that he thought other local authorities were beginning to recognise the benefit in reducing the amount of commercial waste that goes to landfill.
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The debate over non-municipal waste came only days after Martin Brocklehurst, head of waste strategy at the Environment Agency, said that the Agency considers municipal waste is crowding commercial and industrial waste out of waste and recycling facilities.
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