Mr Lee was responding to criteria set by Communities Secretary of State Eric Pickles on Friday (August 29), for councils wishing to attain funding from his new £5 million incentives fund.
[testimonial id = “6” align=”right”]
The new fund gives councils the opportunity to offer residents loyalty rewards for recycling – but only if they continue to provide weekly waste collections for households (see letsrecycle.com story).
In his announcement, Mr Pickles accused ‘town hall bin barons’ of using ‘stealth’ tactics to reduce residual waste collections, with DCLG adding that their exclusion from the bidding process would send a ‘clear signal’.
Commenting on the fund, Mr Lee said: “Any additional money to support local government waste collection services is welcome, particularly at a time when budgets are tight and England’s recycling rate is showing signs of stalling.
“However, £5 million for incentives schemes that may or may not deliver any real behaviour change is unlikely to have a significant impact and will not be the answer to the growing concern that the UK will struggle to meet the EU 50% recycling target in 2020.
“More importantly, government money should not be used to try and force councils into changing the frequency of their residual waste collection services.”
Mr Lee will get the chance to voice his concerns to Mr Pickles at the RWM show in Birmingham later this month, where he is due to chair a talk on local authorities delivered by the communities secretary (see letsrecycle.com story).
LARAC
Meanwhile, Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) chair Andrew Bird welcomed the grant, highlighting that councils operating weekly food or organic waste collections would be eligible to bid for the money.
Mr Bird told letsrecycle.com: “The interesting bit of this is for the first time Mr Pickles talks about weekly food waste collections alongside weekly refuse collections. I look forward to seeing what benefits this can bring to local authorities which operate organic waste collections.”
ESA
And, despite welcoming the incentive, the Environmental Services Association (ESA) was also concerned that Mr Pickles’ proposals ‘ran counter to the spirit of localism’.
A spokeswoman for ESA said: “ESA believes that incentivising householders to make more environmentally friendly choices is an option which the government is right to explore.
“However, attaching conditions to those Authorities which are eligible to receive this newly announced funding seems to run counter to the spirit of the government’s supposed localism agenda. ESA is of course fully supportive of localism.”
She added: “We believe that councils are best placed to decide how to balance the twin priorities of meeting residents’ expectations whilst delivering environmental objectives at the same time.”
Greenredeem
One of the incentive schemes, which looks likely to benefit from the new fund, is Grundon-owned recycling incentive scheme Greenredeem, formerly Recyclebank UK. The scheme praised the fund as a ‘step in the right direction’ towards meeting targets.
Rob Crumbie, communications director at Greenredeem, said: “We strongly believe that incentives are the answer and through our work we know that reward schemes can have a real impact on driving green behaviours, with participating local councils seeing recycling rates increasing by up to three times the national average.
“This new fund is a step in the right direction for us to hit the 2020 target, but in order to ensure this is met we need everyone; local and central government, residents and businesses to come together to encourage the UK to recycle even more than they do now.”
Register for free to comment