Essex county council cabinet last week (March 9) unveiled plans to make an additional £6 million available for recycling credits over the next 25 years in a bid to promote greater joint working between the waste disposal authority (WDA) and its waste collection authorities (WCA).
In 2003 it was agreed that East Sussex, as the WDA, would pay the five district and borough councils £46.99 per tonne for using their own facilities to recycle household waste rather than delivering it into the county council's waste management contract with Brighton and Hove city council and Veolia Environmental Services.
Under this arrangement, which currently costs around £2.2 million each, the county council pays each WCA up to a set threshold.
The current thresholds for recycling credits are: 20% for Hastings district council, Rother district council and Eastbourne borough council; 27% for Lewes district council; and, 33% for Wealden district council.
“Strained”
However, in a report presented to the council cabinet by the director of transport and environment, the county council said it would be seeking to reform the system, as “historically, the relationship between the WDA and WCAs has been strained”.
The council claimed that difficulty arises from the five district and borough councils feel “excluded” from the waste PFI deal signed by East Sussex and Brighton and Hove city council with waste management firm Veolia Environmental Services in 2003.
And, it claimed that the issue of thresholds for recycling credits paid to WCAs for not sending material to be handled under the PFI contract had also created a rift between the waste bodies.
Lewes Liberal Democrats claim that the existing threshold system acts as a ‘cap' on the amount of material being recycled in the county and claim this was part of a plan to make material available for Veolia's Newhaven energy recovery facility.
This suggestion was rejected by the council, which said: “This is not the case. The county council has not placed a cap on the amount of waste that can be recycled – all the district and borough councils are free to recycle as much as possible.
“Furthermore, the waste that will be delivered to the energy recovery facility will only be waste that cannot be recycled and would otherwise be sent to landfill.”
Plans
In order to counter these claims, East Sussex plans to inject £240,000 annually into its recycling credits scheme, or a total of £6 million over 25 years, as part of plans to help drive up recycling rates among the district and borough councils.
The cabinet document claimed that disposal of high value recyclate away from the PFI contract was “an attractive proposition for some WCAs”, because of the potential recycling credit payments and the income from the recyclate, neither of which they get for recyclate delivered into the contract.
The additional money would be drawn from the council's Corporate Waste Reserve.
Threshold
This move would be coupled with the introduction of a blanket threshold of 20% being set for all WCAs, a measure which was pushed for by the WCAs. This will see all councils paid £46.99 per tonnes for diversion of waste material out of the PFI contract.
In addition to the setting of a common threshold, the county council has stated that diversion above the set limit would be rewarded at a rate of £37 per tonnes of material. This payment would be subsidised by not having to pay Landfill Tax to Veolia.
Commenting on the proposals, East Sussex county council leader, Peter Jones, said: “This is yet another great example of partnership working that will help all local authorities in East Sussex to manage household waste more sustainably and efficiently.
“We need to see our household waste as a resource. This is another step to reducing our reliance on landfill and will save the council tax payer money.”
All five district and borough councils have already or will soon be seeking approval from their own respective cabinets to sign up to the new arrangements and it is hoped that all five will be in a position to start the new scheme by 1 April 2010.
The value of recycling credits, which were first introduced in the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and amended in 2006, is worked out as equivalent to the average per tonne cost of the WDA's most expensive form of waste disposal, taking into account inflation.
However, in June 2009, it emerged that less than half of WDAs were using the recycling credits system as an incentive for WCAs or third parties to recycle (see letsrecycle.com story).
Subscribe for free