Government urged to review waste legislation

In an exclusive interview with letsrecycle.com, Mr Marshall said he considered that with so many developments in legislation over the past few years, and difficulties in areas such as PRNs – packaging waste recovery notes – and council targets, as well as the debate over waste charges, a review would make sense.

And, Mr Marshall also spoke of his plans for LARAC, as well as his latest thinking on the Campaign for Real Recycling.

Review

On the need for a review of legislation, he said: “To be fair I think we are at the stage now where we could do with a complete and thorough review of legislation. A lot of current legislation is linked into the Environment Protection Act, which came in 18 years ago.”

Mr Marshall commented on two areas he saw as relevant to a review. He said: “Packaging and landfill targets are going away from each other. Since landfill targets came in, the focus on dry recyclables has lessened, and the PRN income does not have to be passed on to local authorities. Glass and can recycling don't help us meet our landfill diversion targets.”

The potential for how the packaging industry can tap into the local authority side with PRNs to help boost the collection infrastructure should be looked at, he said.

Mr Marshall, who is Powys county council corporate policy and economic development manager – which includes waste management responsibility – pointed to the current situation in Wales, where councils have recycling and composting targets as well as landfill diversion targets.

“In Wales we have targets for both, and this means that you focus on more dry recyclables than you might. That said, the recycling rates across the UK are going up each year. It is nice to get a 'well done' for this, but then people want more. We are all making the changes in 10 years, rather than Europe which has done this in 20.”

Charging

LARAC, said Mr Marshall, has a clear view on charging. “We feel that local authorities should be given the option to charge and should not be made to charge. There could be a combination of charges for recycling and residual refuse, but there would have to be some minimum standard of service. A certain element of incentives for kerbside collection of recycling is necessary and tackling flytipping is essential. We can see the merit in incentives, but the way it is set up looks bureaucratic and making it revenue-neutral makes it unwieldy.”

Mr Marshall also suggested that a new charging regime could open up the market for different contractors collecting from the household. “Logically this could open up the market and there could be a service from a waste provider such as SITA or Biffa, although this would be a big legislative change,” he said.

“Real” recycling

“LARAC has not joined the Campaign for Real Recycling,” said Mr Marshall. However, he said that it understands the campaign's concerns. (The campaign is generally opposed to materials recycling facilities and is of the view that commingled collections “could permanently undermine the environmental and financial benefits of recycling”).

Mr Marshall said: “While we would want to see as much reprocessing as possible in the UK, we would not want to be propping up the domestic industry as local authorities.”

And, he went on to suggest that the reprocessing industry might pay more for materials if it wanted to encourage kerbside sorting. “We appreciate reprocessors are in the market for materials, but there is no price difference for quality. There may be legitimate constraints on this, but industry could alter the price model – it might make economic sense.”

Mr Marshall added that there were many differences between authorities. “The Real Recycling campaign has to take into account other factors – councils can be very different. Powys is very rural and Tower Hamlets is high density, so we have to make sure the collection system is efficient and effective for the different authorities. It is also hard while we are all introducing services.”

A report from WRAP on best practice and the design of MRFs, due out soon, will be important in the discussions on quality, said the LARAC chair.

Business plan

The end of 2008 will be the final period of office for Mr Marshall, who has served for four years. Next January a new chair will be elected from the organisation's executive committee. Before then, a new business plan will be published covering the next four years – publication could be in June this year.

Work on this started at a recent away day for LARAC's executive committee. Mr Marshall commented: “It was encouraging at the away day that the view was if it does not appear to be broke then it doesn't need fixing.

“A members' survey found they were happy with our lobbying and policy work. From that point of view, it is very encouraging and our next business plan is likely to continue in the style of evolution and not revolution. As the executive, one point of view is that we would like to get more resources in to have a wider and deeper reach in lobbying, getting more of our policy on the front foot and help shape consultations before they come out.”

Taking on extra help would come as a cost – in the past LARAC had Neil Ferris of North Lincolnshire council as a two day a week secondee. Mr Marshall said: “Before coming to any decisions, we have to assess our membership fees to have a look at this. There are going to be less local authorities with a reorganisation of local authorities and there could be a reduction of as many as of 40-50 authorities. A lot of our income is generated from the membership fee, something we may be looking at.”

Whatever is decided, Mr Marshall, emphasised: “If we are going to increase our current membership fee of £250, we will have to show what we are providing for the increases and that we are better able to represent our members and get more for them.”