At an adjournment debate on household recycling held today, MPs called on the government to move away from incineration, support high-performing councils rather than throwing money at problem authorities and to provide the necessary funds to reach European targets.
But present at the debate, minister of state for environment, food and rural affairs Alun Michael said that funding had been provided, and that local authorities are on course to meet their targets.
The minister said: “Progress looks slow, but [DEFRA figures] were for the period before statutory targets and extra funding came in. I'm told that local authorities are on course to meet their 17% target for waste to be recycled or composted by 2003-04.”
Incineration
The debate, held in Westminster Hall on the first day that members returned to the House of Commons after the summer recess, was procured by the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, Mark Field. The Conservative back-bencher spoke about his concerns on incineration, since his constituency relies to a large degree on the incinerators at Edmonton and SELCHP.
Mr Field said: “I am concerned that a lot of the time the attitude of the Labour Government towards recycling could be described as cynical – this is supposed to be the 'greenest government ever'. But the government is intending to meet its targets by burning as much of a third of its waste.”
Southampton MP Dr Alan Whitehead pointed out that since local authorities are being under funded by the government, the only way to bring in investment from private companies was by signing up to long-term waste contracts – which often included incineration options.
“I'm told a 400,000 tonne incinerator costs only three times as much as a 100,000 tonne plant,” Dr Whitehead said. “With economies of scale, more of these big incinerators are being built and local authorities are being locked into a disposal strategy where the waste has to go to them. Recycling will have to be stopped so the local authorities can feed the incinerators.”
Diminishing returns
Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for home affairs and MP for Mid Dorset and Poole North said that the spread of kerbside recycling in her constituency was being prevented by the lack of markets for recycled materials. She said that recycling simply wasn't cost effective compared with landfilling at the current rate of landfill tax. She also pointed out that high performing councils are being let down by the government in favour of low performing councils.
“My constituency members have enormous concern over our high targets – they have been very successful in recycling, but now our targets have been set higher and the government support reduced. Other local authorities have been given lower targets and more help. But the law of diminishing returns means that as you get higher and higher recycling rates it costs more.”
Responding to this point, government minister Alun Michael said: “The law of diminishing returns is there, yes, but it can be difficult to start recycling in the first place – once you've got a population that knows recycling is being taken seriously, it's not as difficult.”
Sue Doughty, the anti-incineration Zero-Waste campaigning MP for Guildford added to her growing reputation as a major figure in the waste debate by saying that too much talking is being done over recycling, with not enough action.
“We quite often debate rubbish and don't do much about it,” she said. “We are being rather pathetic and sad about recycling our waste. We are going to miss our targets – some by as much as ten years, as the recent Environmental Services Association figures show. There's nothing happening to encourage householders to minimise their waste. We are procrastinating but doing nothing.”
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