Lack of clear lead in government on waste policy

Government policy on waste lacks both coherence and certainty and responsibility for the brief should be given to a minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), according to a House of Lords select committee.

The Lords science and technology committee today (March 6) published a report, Waste or resource? Stimulating the bioeconomy, which calls on the government to shift its view of waste to see it as an opportunity rather than a problem.

As such, it recommends shifting responsibility for waste from Defra to BIS to signal the economic opportunities available in management, although it stresses that environmental and economic imperatives need not be seen to be in conflict.

Currently, responsibility for waste and resource policy broadly lies with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which indicated in November 2013 that it would be stepping back on its waste activities in 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, the select committee report argues that a clear, long-term strategy and stable policy environment is needed to encourage and stimulate the waste-based bioeconomy as there is a lack of a clear lead within government, with responsibilities spread across several government departments, and inadequate coordination and cohesion.

The report, which follows a number of oral evidence sessions held in autumn 2013 and early 2014, recommends a waste champion BIS minister should coordinate activities across government and ensure that a plan with at least a 15 year horizon is produced on waste by 2015.

Recomendations

Elsewhere, the report calls for Defra and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to adopt a far more ambitious approach to waste collections in order to maximise the potential for waste to be used as a resource.

To this end, the committee suggests that local authorities are offered further guidance on collections and that the long-term policy goal should be to create a more standardised system of waste collection across local authorities.

Other recommendations in the report include: reducing the amounts of waste exported abroad to retain its value as a resource; a reassessment of the BISs incentives for specific sectors in developing a waste-based bioeconomy; and that the government looks to the likes of Brazil, USA and China for examples of developing bioeconomies.

The select committees recommendations follow a policy paper published last month by the 2020 Conservatives group, which also called for the waste brief to be moved from Defra to BIS, suggesting this would help redefine waste as an opportunity not a liability (see letsrecycle.com story).

Opportunity

Chair of the House of Lords science and technology committee, Lord Krebs, said: Our investigation has revealed that the UK, which generates hundreds of millions of tonnes of waste every year, has the scientific know-how and the industrial will to turn this waste into wealth.

But we are concerned that the government is not seizing this opportunity there is a huge amount at stake here, economically and environmentally, and no single department appears to be leading the way.

He added: Our report clearly shows that where theres muck, theres brass. Waste, traditionally seen as a problem, needs to be viewed as a hugely valuable resource, one which could generate a substantial economy of its own. We must not let this opportunity pass us by.