LARAC critical of incentive guidelines

The comments are a response to draft guidance issued by the Department on a ‘Good Recycling Service', as part of guidelines produced to help councils decide whether they want to apply to run one of five trial financial incentive schemes for recycling (see letsrecycle.com story)

In the response, LARAC policy officer Andrew Craig said: “We believe that the proposals are potentially confusing. The Government should draw a clear distinction between what constitutes ‘good' recycling service and criteria that the Government requires local authorities to meet in order to implement a pilot ‘incentives' scheme as laid out in the 2008 Climate Change Bill.”

The guidance for incentive schemes, which was unveiled at the end of June, encouraged responses on the plans, proposed as part of the Climate Change Bill, which would take away the statutory obligation to collect waste free of charge for those councils selected as part of the pilot.

Guidance

The provision for ‘Good Recycling Service', one of six sections in total covered by the full guidance, was intended to set out the minimum statutory standards a potential pilot authority would be required to meet but LARAC claim it lacks clarity and needs to be reassessed.

In particular, it takes issue with the “desirable criteria” contained within the guidance, claiming that the requirements include “stipulations that are unnecessarily and potentially unhelpfully restrictive.”

LARAC insisted that including collection of plastics and food at the kerbside within the criteria represented “inducements” for the local authorities to start collecting them rather than actually forming part of “fundamental desirable” criteria for a 'good' recycling service.

It argued that, while they might help in the selection of choosing pilot councils, they should not form a defining characteristic of what makes ‘good' recycling.

It also claims that this could impact on councils' choices of recycling options and technologies, referring to Energy-from-Waste in particular, and explaining that “the implication of the current draft is that if it does not collect plastics and food separately, it might not be possible for the recycling service to be defined as 'good'. This would unnecessarily constrain choice”.

Choices

The criteria also include a requirement for a recycling rate above 20%, and, as well as questioning the use of any arbitrary rate, it suggests the inclusion of councils with low recycling rates in the pilot schemes could be useful.

It said: “The inclusion of one or more historically low-performing councils could provide very useful information on the performance of incentive schemes in a less sympathetic context.”

CIWM 

While other formal responses to the guidance are yet to emerge, Steve Lee, chief executive of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), presented a supportive view of the proposed guidelines.

He said: “This draft guidance helps to clarify how the schemes would be planned, approved and operated, and we expect more to come over the summer. The acid test will be whether and which local authorities want to take part in these trials.”

The legislation has not yet made its way through Parliament but Defra have encouraged feedback and likely to name pilot locations two months after the document has received Royal Assent. The deadline for comments on the ‘Good Recycling Service' section has now passed (July 11) but further responses are being sort on the remainder of the guidance, with a submission deadline of July 25.