Identifying best practice

Today we recycle 43% of household and commercial waste in the UK, a huge increase from the 7.5% recycled in 1996/7. This represents a radical shift in our approach to what we throw away and is largely down to the hard work of councils to make it easier for residents to sort and dispose of everything from plastic bottles and tin cans to TVs and fridges. The LGA recently commissioned a major waste review to see what the future holds for waste and where councils go from here (see letsrecycle.com story).

Although the cultural change in our attitude towards waste has been supported by local authorities, to date it has largely been driven by the green agenda. In the 80s and 90s the globalisation of the economy and increasing availability of cheap imported goods lead to the creation of a throw-away’ society with little care for the impact our rate of consumption was having on the planet or our pockets. The amount of waste we were creating started to increase at a phenomenal rate and in 2008 the EU set all European countries a binding target of recycling half of all local authority collected waste by 2020, with heavy fines if these were not achieved.

EU recycling target

Now in 2013 the UK looks in good shape to meet its EU recycling target, but not simply because of a desire to be more environmentally minded. Once again our concept of waste is changing. We are starting to see an increased focus on reducing the overall amount of waste produced, while seeing that which remains not as rubbish but as a resource to be exploited. For example, there is more gold in a tonne of electronic waste than in a tonne of gold ore, and so it would be crazy to throw this away or sell it cheaply to countries like China to be processed.

Last year councils spent 3.2 billion on collecting and processing the contents of the nation’s bins, but this figure would be nearly 800m higher if it was not for the income councils earned for their waste and recycling services. The money we get from recycling is unlikely to offset all the waste collection costs any time soon but with a statutory obligation to collect the bins and councils needing to fund major budget cuts across all services, we, as local authorities, need to both acknowledge and continue to obtain better value for money from our waste resources and help ease the impact of the government’s austerity measures.

The LGA’s waste review will identify best practice in the sector and what innovations are making a real difference, providing opportunities for local authorities to save money and find new ways to turn rubbish into revenue. We called on councils and our partners in the waste industry to submit evidence by the 15 February deadline and we will report back on our findings in the spring.