Speaking at the annual conference of the Local
Authorities Recycling Adivisory Committee (LARAC) in
Cardiff today, Mr Meacher reminded local authorities
that as well as their individual statutory targets,
they would have to reach 17% recycling of household
waste by 2003-4 and 25% by 2005-6. And, he hinted that some form of incentivisation to encourage householders to recycling is being considered.
He warned councils that if he was not convinced they were
doing enough to reach the recycling targets, the government
would step in.
“I am deadly serious about this,” he said. “We have
European targets to meet, and although of course it is
highly preferable that solutions are local and
community based, in severe cases the powers are there
for directing the authorities, and in particularly
difficult cases to remove management from the
authorities concerned while still leaving the
authorities liable to pay for the waste management.”
He added: “I never want to use that – and hope and
pray we don't have to, but the power is there.”
The environment minister revealed that he had just
written to the leaders of councils he is particularly
worried about, calling it a “shot across the bows” for
those failing local authorities.
Discontent
Mr Meacher indicated that there was some tension
within DEFRA that they could not get more money from
the Treasury to cope with waste. He defended the
government's policy to give priority assistance to low
performing councils, responding to the growing
discontent among the high and medium performing
councils that such a policy would provide no
motivation to them to recycle. The bottom line, he
emphasised, was that local authorities had to take
responsibility for themselves.
He continued: “Though we want to fund all local authorities
we want to focus on low-performing authorities – there
is plenty of evidence to the value of recycling – it
is an election winning issue.”
The audience at the conference was told that councils should not complain that the government hasn't put in the
funding, quoting the 1.1 billion provided in the
Chancellor's spending reviews, while admitting that
figure was not purely for waste management. He also
mentioned the 220m from private finance initiatives
(PFIs) that is being made available – and increased to
335m up to 2005-6 – and also the 140m National Waste
Minimisation and Recycling Fund. He revealed that the
money from the first round of the 140m was now being
handed out, and that the expert judging panel was
currently scrutinising the bids for the second round.
“The second round bidding ended on 30th September, and
we received over 350 bids in all, asking us for over
220m – we've only got 76.3m to give out.”
Packaging
Mr Meacher said that local authorities would be key in
the UK reaching European packaging waste targets,
which are rising to at least 60% by 2006 or 2008, he
said, equating to 5.7 million tonnes of material.
“We estimate that 3 million tonnes of this will have
to come from household waste,” he said. “Local
authorities can count this towards their targets but
additional collection systems will be needed – not
just for glass, which is easy because it is
comparatively heavy – but also steel and plastic.”
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