Defra has stressed the importance of waste prevention over the lifetime of the Waste Review but stated that there are many challenges and discussions required before a definitive waste prevention plan can be developed.
A commitment to create a Waste Prevention Programme was included in the governments policy document published earlier this week, which included propoals for tool-kits on waste minimisation, business waste reduction trials and a Waste Prevention Fund.
And, speaking yesterday (June 15) at the CIWM conference, Nicola Leeds, head of waste prevention at Defra, said there were a million and one things that needed to be addressed over the next few years before a fully formed programme on waste prevention could be developed.
I think it is important to say that there is going to have to be a high number of different initiatives that will work together in order to build up a waste prevention plan, she said.
It is not going to simply take one thing from government saying adopt this, as that is not going to be enough.
Ms Leeds added that, while a waste prevention programme is required by December 2013 under the revised Waste Framework Directive, Defra also needed to develop a plan in order to gauge future policies that could tie in with the waste hierarchy.
She said: We are not just doing it because of Europe, we are doing it because we need a strategic oversight of how we can prevent waste and make it easier for householders and businesses and everyone to do the right thing.
Discussions
A pivotal element of the plans, Ms Leeds said, would be Defra working with all interested parties, such as business, local authorities and campaign groups, to assess what different sectors and services thought should be done on waste prevention.
The thing that I need to get across is that we really need to have a working relationship between government, local authorities, organisations and businesses. We are not going to be able to do this alone and we will be looking at how we can draw the people that are interested in talking about this together over the coming months.
Alan Potter of consultancy Beyond Waste asked Ms Leeds whether it was necessary for Defra to develop an indicator to measure waste reduction and prevention when the results should be obvious in themselves.
Ms Leeds said that it would be important that householders and residents are kept informed that they are doing the right thing.
Discussing the Waste Prevention Fund which is a 1 million rotating fund set to be administered by the Waste & Resources Action Programme Ms Leeds said that greater detail would be made available in the coming weeks and months.
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