November 16, 2021 by James Langley

Northern Ireland consults on ‘first ever’ environment strategy

Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s environment minister, launched a consultation on the country’s “first ever” overarching environment strategy at COP26 last week.

DAERA is a government department in the Northern Ireland Executive, the devolved administration for Northern Ireland based at Stormont (picture: Shutterstock)

The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) says the strategy will set out Northern Ireland’s environmental priorities for the coming decades.

As such, it includes a mix of existing and new environmental targets for DAERA and all other Northern Irish departments “with a role in improving the environment”.

The draft strategy contains several targets pertaining to waste. DAERA says it will publish a new Waste Management Strategy by 2023, introduce an extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging in 2023 in line with the rest of the UK, and introduce a deposit return scheme for drink containers in 2024/25.

It also targets bringing forward all the actions set out in its Waste Prevention Plan in 2019, introducing legislation to reduce the consumption of single use plastic items, and sending no more than 10% of waste to landfill by 2035.

The consultation runs to 18 January 2022 and is open to responses from anyone. DAERA says it will publish a summary of the findings before publishing the final strategy in “early 2022”.

‘Environmental challenges’

Launching the consultation during a visit to the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Mr Poots said Northern Ireland faced a range of “local environmental challenges”, including waste management, the development of a circular economy, and waste crime.

Edwin Poots has been Northern Ireland’s environment minister since January 2020 (picture: DAERA)

He also said the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union provided “new environmental opportunities” and “a clear impetus for the first long-term, over-arching environment strategy for Northern Ireland”.

Mr Poots added: “This strategy will form the basis for a coherent and effective set of interventions that can deliver real improvements in the quality of the environment.”

Circular economy

In the draft strategy, DAERA targets developing a circular economy in Northern Ireland. To help do so, it will publish a ‘NI Circularity Gap Report’ in 2021 and a Circular Economy Strategic Framework by 2022.

DAERA says it will appoint members “representing a diverse range of industries, sectors and interest” to a NI Circular Economy Coalition and work with “enablers” in the digital, education, media, central and local government, and procurement sectors to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.

And, DAERA says there will be a NI Civil Service policy review to identify and embed circular practices in current and planned policy.

Fly-tipping

The draft strategy also contains targets relating to fly-tipping. In the strategy, DAERA says it will secure the agreement of all 11 of Northern Ireland’s councils to a ‘Fly-tipping Protocol’ demarcating the roles and responsibilities of each local authority.

Seven councils have already committed to the protocol, the strategy says. DAERA says it remains in discussion with the other four. The strategy says DAERA and the councils will review the protocol annually.

The strategy also sets targets for the development of a consistent approach to data collection regarding fly-tipping and illegal waste disposal across Northern Ireland, including through exploring a fly-tipping app.