letsrecycle.com understands that the DRS and consistency consultation responses are likely to be published next month following a final review by other departments impacted by the policy proposals.
The responses are long overdue, and were expected this year. In October, Dr Barbara Leach, Defra’s head of resources and waste strategy evaluation, said at the LARAC Conference that publishing the responses was an “absolute priority” for the department and that they would be published later in 2022 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Details
The department is working behind the scenes with local authorities and the private sector to thrash out delivery of the policies set out in the 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy.
For local authorities, Defra this month wrote to both collection and disposal authorities asking them to fill out a questionnaire to determine any obstacles for rolling out separate food waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
The department said that transitional arrangements can be made if there are obstacles to having it in place by a common date, but problems must be “identified” first.
In the private sector, Defra has been meeting with trade associations behind closed doors to thrash out final details of EPR (see letsrecycle.com story), amid complaints from some producers over details and costs.
Others have said there have been “crisis talks” to save EPR, but Defra has repeatedly looked to dampen this instead saying they are simply roundtable discussions.
The other major issue is who the central body will be. It seems likely this will be from the public sector, but quite how this will work is still to be decided, much to the frustration of many producers.
One option under consideration is that the Environment Agency takes on the central body role, which would see it administering more than £1 billion of public funds from brand owners and others to pay local authorities for the collection of recycling. However, it is thought that the Agency has some concerns over resources available for any potential role and Defra has also considered setting up a new organisation along the lines of the Rural Payments Agency which gives out funds to farmers.
Minister
Secretary of state Thérèse Coffey was a parliamentary under secretary of state with responsibility for recycling when the 2018 strategy was rolled out when Michael Gove was secretary of state.
Dr Coffey is therefore one of the architects of the legislation and is known to be keen to push forward the stalled policy, and is expected to be particularly in favour of a DRS which was supported heavily by Mr Gove.
Register for free to comment