The government is undertaking a review of household waste recycling targets after 2005/06, and has also been reviewing Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs) on waste and recycling.
Now the Local Government Association has responded to comments made by environment minister Elliot Morley at last month's Labour Party Conference. Mr Morley had said that he was aware of concerns that including green waste collections in council recycling targets might hinder home composting.
Instead of excluding green waste in council recycling targets, the LGA would like to see the government including home composting.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, the LGA's executive officer for waste and environment, Alice Roberts, said: “The LGA would be concerned if green waste collected via kerbside schemes did not continue to contribute to targets. We appreciate it is vital to redress the current incentive to collect materials centrally – but we believe this is best resolved by allowing councils to count home composting towards BVPIs and consequently recycling targets.”
The LGA added that while home composting is the most environmentally beneficial option, that green waste collections are still important in areas where people can't compost at home because of a lack of space.
Emphasis
However, the Conservative Party shadow secretary of state for the environment, Richard Ottaway, said today in Parliament that “too much emphasis is being placed on the collection of green waste”.
Mr Ottaway said: “Local authorities like collecting heavy materials like green waste, but people could be spreading it on their garden. What we are no collecting enough is plastic. One of the things we should be looking at is some positive discrimination of plastic – ask any member of the public what their biggest problem is, and they will say plastic packaging.”
Also speaking at the Parliamentary Sustainable Waste Group meeting today, consultant Dominic Hogg claimed that collecting green waste is “collecting 200kg of material per household that wasn't going to landfill in the first place”. And, he said that local authorities in Europe that started free garden waste collections some years ago are now beginning to charge for the services because of the amount of extra waste they generate.
Producers
But local authorities have told letsrecycle.com that the calls to force local authorities to pick up plastic bottles and other packaging waste rather than green waste is an attempt by packaging producers to shift costs of the packaging regulations onto the taxpayer.
One local authority expert said: “If they want this packaging waste collected, these producers should set up their own collection schemes rather than have it paid for by the taxpayer.”
Some local authority representatives believe that if England reaches its 25% household waste recycling target in 2005/06, if the green waste is no longer counted towards recycling targets, the “recycling rate of 25% would drop to 15% overnight”.
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