The order is the first formal direction the Mayor has issued a waste authority since he was elected in the year 2000. It requires that the Authority completes a Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) assessment for the treatment and disposal of municipal waste and produces a joint municipal waste management strategy.
Mayor Ken Livingstone has said he will not allow further waste tenders to go ahead until he is “convinced that the services are in the interests of London and its neighbours”.
Mr Livingstone said: “After much consideration I have decided to issue a direction to West London Waste Authority in order to satisfy myself that they are considering the environment when they arrange their waste management contracts.
“We tend to throw away our rubbish in the bin and forget what happens to it. But we must dispose of our rubbish properly and London needs to take responsibility for its own waste.
“West London Waste Authority (WLWA) must ensure that they manage their waste in a sustainable way and therefore I am requiring that they carry out an assessment of environmental options and that they produce a waste management strategy that is both good for London and its neighbours,” Mr Livingstone said.
Strategy
The direction was issued under section 356 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999. Waste authorities, which represent the waste disposal interests of their member boroughs, were to have submitted joint municipal waste strategies to the Mayor's office by September 2004. The West London Waste Authority has failed to submit its strategy in time for this deadline.
The West London Waste Authority deals with about 852,000 tonnes of waste from the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames each year. The Authority's recycling rate for 2003/04 was about 17%.
The Authority is meeting this afternoon to discuss the Mayor's directive and the potential for a new waste disposal contract for the future. A spokesman for the Authority said he could not comment until the meeting had taken place.
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