The Packaging Recycling Action Group – a body representing the Local Government Association, retailers and the packaging industry – is asking councils what they believe the best collection options for their areas are, and what barriers there may be to moving towards them.
No council will be required to implement one particular system as a result of this work as this would be impracticable. We do, however, want to influence changes over time
Alice Roberts, LGA
The consultation represents an early step towards creating more recycling uniformity in the UK and comes in the wake of increasing public frustration that there is no standard recycling collection system for packaging in this country, while nations such as Germany have more uniform schemes.
The LGA has entered the discussions on the basis that councils are likely to need funding if they are to extend their recycling systems to collect more types of plastics in particular, or if they have to change their existing system to establish more consistency across the country.
The consultation foreshadows the publication of a report which PRAG hopes to present to the government on how to increase the quantity and quality of packaging materials collected for recycling by local authorities.
Announcing it, the LGA's executive manager for waste and environment and chair of Working Group 2 of the PRAG, Alice Roberts, said: “This consultation seeks to establish whether it is possible to find five or six systems which could become standard and to establish what barriers there may be for councils moving towards using these systems.”
“No council will be required to implement one particular system as a result of this work as this would be impracticable. We do, however, want to influence changes over time and so it will be in the interest of local authorities to present a view on what they feel would be the best options for collecting packaging materials from households for recycling,” she added.
PRAG
The Packaging Recycling Action Group was set up earlier this summer as a response to concerns from residents, consumers and voters about the inconsistency in what they could recycle and why they could not recycle certain items.
The group includes four working groups, looking at finance, packaging design, communications and local authority collection systems.
Members of the last group, which instigated the council consultation, include British Glass, Corus Recycling, the British Plastics Federation, M&S, Alupro, ReCoup, LARAC, Coca Cola Entreprises, WRAP, Veolia, COSLA, and the Welsh Assembly Government.
Ms Roberts explained: “This group was set up as a response to concerns from residents, consumers and voters who contact retailers, their council and government ministers regularly to express their concerns about the inconsistency in what they can recycle and also asking why they cannot recycle certain items.”
Options
In the packaging collection systems consultation, councils are asked to rate six recycling collection options for different housing types, which the PRAG believes are most likely to be the best given the need for quality and cost effectiveness and after consulting with reprocessors about their quality needs.
The choices range from Option 1 – kerbside sort of paper, card, glass metal and plastic – to Option 6 – commingled collections of glass, paper, card, metal and plastic sorted in a materials recycling facility.
Options 2-5 all involve different two stream collections with the commingled streams sorted at a MRF.
The PRAG explained that it did not want to have too many options but also felt there should be an ‘Other' section so councils could say if they did not feel the options covered the best collection systems available.
Local authorities are also asked what barriers they think might exist to implementing these options over the next 12 months and what incentive (including financial) they would need to be able to introduce them.
The remaining question relates to the use of on-street high density bring sites, with councils being asked under what circumstances it might be possible to move to only using two types of bring sites for residual waste or recyclables – if any – in their local authority.
The consultation stated: “These are now even being used effectively by councils to collect residual waste, with considerable efficiencies compared to door to door collections.”
Questionnaires can be found on the LGA website and should be emailed to Sarah Dagwell at Medway council, who co-ordinates the work of the LGA, LARAC, NAWDO, CSS, ALCO and the LGA, at sarah.dagwell@medway.gov.uk . The deadline for responses is August 28.
The consultation comes just three months after it was predicted that council recycling collections would be standardised within 10 years (see letsrecycle.com story).
