The survey has been launched to gain customer’s views on a ‘fourth option’, which could see local authorities take over the collection of business waste from small and medium sized businesses.
And, skip hire and waste sector trade association UROC wrote to the recycling minister Rebecca Pow with an alternative system, and urged her to revise the timetable for its rollout.
Proposals
This comes amid mounting pressure on Defra over its proposals, estimated to cost £1.5 billion, which companies say leave them facing an “existential threat” if they go ahead.
Defra set out its proposals to enable businesses to receive a rebate for packaging waste in its extended producer responsibility (EPR) consultation earlier this year.
The consultation sets out three payment mechanisms for the scheme, which will see businesses receive rebates, funded by producers, for packaging waste collected in order to bring the costs as “close to zero as possible” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Fourth option
The industry-wide customer survey, sent to customers across the country, centres on a so called ‘fourth option’.
This is thought to be under active consideration by the government and emerged from discussions between the Business Payments mechanism Sprint Group and in bi-lateral engagement with key stakeholders, after the consultation took place.
Under these proposals, local authorities would be responsible for arranging the management of packaging from small and micro businesses. They would be paid for this service by the Scheme Administrator.
In summary, the authority could either carry out the collections themselves or outsource collection and management, either as a single large zone, which the private sector can bid for.
For medium and large businesses, they will have the choice of whether to receive a rebate or opt to be part of the LA procurement free bin zone.
Survey
In the survey by private waste companies, it says the views of responding companies will be collected, anonymised, and fed back to the government.
The survey explains that one of the biggest proposed changes is to make local councils the “sole provider for mixed recycling, cardboard and glass collections across the UK for small businesses”.
“This means that you would be forced to use your local council in future years and if you had any problems with the service there would be no other options available,” the survey introduction continued.
You would be forced to use your local council in future years and if you had any problems with the service there would be no other options available” – Industry-wide survey
Letter
The survey comes as Jennifer Watts, the chief executive of UROC, penned a letter to the recycling minister which said the proposals will result in a swathe of business closures with a loss of thousands of private sector jobs and essential recycling infrastructure.
Ms Watts said the proposals “to mandate local authorities replace the private waste sector in collecting up to 70% of commercial wastes must be stopped”.
She said: “We consider the provision of a ‘free-bin’ for businesses will do nothing to improve recycling but will instead incentivise collection of the lowest quality contaminated materials. This scheme has not been properly developed, it is not based on solid data that is open to scrutiny and will not deliver on government objectives”.
Alternative
UROC has also put forward 3-point alternative proposal and says it is “engaging cross sector with a wider group of stakeholders so that a sensible and workable solution can be found”.
This alternative proposal includes a voucher scheme, where businesses will receive a reduction on their packaging recycling which will be redeemed by their waste collection provider – “this would ensure that the private sector continues to provide services”, UROC said.
The alternative proposal would also have business support and says more resources should be allocated to bolster local authority enforcement teams.
UROC added that a “key part” of its alternative proposal would see a large proportion of the packaging producers pot being allocated to new and emerging technology for re-processing, securing resources and end markets for packaging materials.
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