I've been musing on the difficulties of ensuring that all policies stack up and that one doesn't undermine the other thus falling foul of the law of unintended consequences. These musings (my own of course rather than those of my employer or LARAC) have been prompted by reading some of the news stories surrounding the Policy Exchange latest report, 'A Wasted Opportunity?', and comments by Nick Herbert the Shadow Environment Secretary.
Joy Blizzard is a waste initiatives officer at Shropshire county council as well as a nationally elected chair of a leading local authority organisation promoting waste reduction in the UK – the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC).
Back in the very early 1990s, when box schemes were so radically new I remember having to travel half way across the country to see one. That was probably the time when government needed to intervene to set out at least uniform colours for recycling systems. I wonder which party was in power then? A wasted opportunity for sure. I think it's a bit late now to try to bolt the depot door after the kerbsiders and RCVs in all their glorious variations have left for a days work. How would a standardised service fit in with the cherished ideal of small government and local decision making?
I've only dipped into the report so I'm only going to chew over one of the recommendations – the one on collections. Whether the Tory party decide to adopt the report wholesale or not isn't clear but if they do, they may want to ponder on how it will impact on their other policies and core beliefs.
“Councils should be prevented from forcing an excessive number of bins on households…three bins for food waste, dry recyclables and residual waste, should be the limit….and government should regulate to that effect.” So much for limited government but at last someone other than local council officers will be dubbed “the bin police”.
With only one container for dry recyclables, and the range of materials collected growing all the time, does not this idea force councils to go co-mingled because we are rapidly getting to the stage where one box would not have enough capacity for all the materials that are now collected. So, if we are heading down the MRF route – where does the community sector fit in?
Delivering services in conjunction with the third sector is a key Tory policy – but are not most of the community sector recycling schemes kerbside sort? And that's after ignoring a lot of the recent evidence in favour of kerbside sort in terms of quality, value and carbon footprints.
Where is the proof that households can't cope with a number of small containers? I work and live in an authority where some of our households have a number of such boxes and food waste containers – and we also have managed to keep high satisfaction ratings. Last time we asked 87% of people found recycling convenient and some of them have 3 small recycling boxes, a green waste bin and a residual bin.
We also happen to be Tory controlled. So, when it comes to a bin showdown I wonder who will have the final say national or local government? I wonder if all this hoo-ha about confusion over different schemes in different areas is mostly driven by people that live in more than one house- MPs for example.
Miss Moneypenny once suggested to Bond that one day he would have to make good on all his innuendos. Perhaps the same should be said for think tanks. They should be made to implement successfully all of their ideas. My suggestion would be to start with an easy one of agreeing a national colour for the one recycling bin, and then manage the change process. That should keep them busy until the next election – or possibly until the one after that.
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