Potential for 770m in waste service savings found

That is the conclusion of a report launched last night (December 8) by the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), entitled ‘Cutting Waste – Reducing Costs and Improving Waste and Recycling Services'.

The research, carried out by Eunomia, explains that enormous investment has been made in the waste sector over the past decade but concludes that much of this has been inefficient. Therefore it makes a number of recommendations for how money could be saved whilst improving services as the same time.

Suggestions for the government include setting up a national efficiency partnership to support councils in sharing best practice.

Ministers are also urged to let councils choose how often waste is collected despite “government rhetoric suggesting that fortnightly refuse collections should not be allowed”.

This is understood to have angered the department for Communities and Local Government, which, led by secretary of state Eric Pickles, has been a firm advocate of weekly collections. However, as yet, no statement has been released.

Study

The study was written by consultancy Eunomia and launched at an event in London sponsored by waste management firm SITA UK.

James Fulford, lead author of the report at Eunomia, told the meeting: “There are ways in which the environmental consequences of waste can be improved and costs cut – potentially very dramatically”.

Mr Fulford pointed to ways in which many councils were spending inefficiently on waste services and provided the example of one local authority which was collecting plastics at the kerbside and then sending them to a materials recycling facility which could not separate them out – meaning that they had to be sent to landfill.

On LATS, he claimed that the scheme – whereby councils are giving a decreasing number of allowances each year to send waste to landfill, which they can trade – had “not worked as planned” because councils treated their allowances as a target. He said: “Our recommendation is that LATS should be scrapped”.

Garden waste

Mr Fulford also pointed to the “bizarre situation” which meant that councils had rolled out unnecessary schemes for garden waste which was previously composted at home with “huge environmental and cost implications”.

He said: “Any waste indicators which are used need to respect the waste hierarchy, not just recycling and composting. Total household waste generated would be better, with a strong focus on lower production”.

In the report foreword, CEN director Paul Foote said: “The report is a conclusive demonstration of how better policy can make the waste sector more efficient – how the cuts required to the public finances don't have to come at the expense of making waste management greener.
“In fact, the recommendations in the report, including concrete reforms to the incentives and targets in waste policy and ways to produce productivity in the sector, show how we can actually save money and cut waste at the same time.”

The key report recommendations are:

• The rate of landfill tax should at all times be made known for a period of at least seven years, given the lead times for infrastructure planning and development.

• The government should commit to ensuring that beyond 2014, there will be no decline in the landfill tax in real terms

• If a performance indicator for waste is to be introduced, it should be based on the quantity of residual waste per inhabitant (or per household)

• The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme should be dismantled as soon as is practical

• The government should work with councils and industry to develop a framework in which the inefficiency of the commercial waste collection market is addressed through a more to a recycling-led area-based franchise model

• Government should ensure that county and district councils' incentives to recycle are aligned, as better recycling services provided by district councils save money for county councils

• Government rhetoric suggesting that fortnightly refuse collections should not be allowed is unhelpful, misguided and contradicts the coalition government's commitment to localism. Local authorities should be free to choose how and when waste is collected.

• A national efficiency and partnership programme should be established to support local authorities in getting better deals when commissioning services and to boost the productivity of the services. This should draw on a wide range of expertise, including from WRAP and the private sector.

• Government should help councils access funds to implement waste efficiency and partnership projects. A revolving loan fund would enable the savings released in one authority area to be re-invested in efficiency projects in other areas.

• The legislation allowing for the creation of Joint Waste Authorities (JWAs) is flawed. It should either be replaced or amended to allow JWAs greater financial independence as unless these authorities are able to raise funds more directly there is not prospect of the legislation ever being used.