Slow take up for business waste commitment

WRAP is encouraging more councils to sign up to its business waste and recycling services commitment after revealing that only seven councils have joined so far.

WRAP launched the voluntary commitment in October 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story) to encourage local authorities to follow best practice in operating trade waste services.

The commitment outlines the level of services that businesses, in particular small and medium enterprises (SMEs), can expect from their local authority with regards to waste and recycling collections including; reliable and regular collections, reasonable fees, and guidance on waste management.

At the time of its launch recycling minister Lord Taylor said the commitment would provide much needed relief for smaller businesses that want to do the right thing and would act as a solid agreement between businesses and local authorities.

However, WRAP has revealed that only seven councils have signed up so far meaning the impact could fall far below expectations.

The seven local authorities already signed up are: Slough borough council; Pendle borough council; East Riding of Yorkshire council; Rutland county council; Reading borough council; London Borough of Bexley and Daventry district council.

A spokesman for WRAP said that other councils are already in the process of signing up. He said: It is a big commitment. Were talking to waste and recycling managers in the first instance and they in turn need to get senior management and/or cabinet approval. Some authorities feel that they are already in a position to sign up to all or some of the principles, but many need to review their current services.

Barriers

In a bid to gain more signatories WRAP ran a workshop last month (February 28) to convince councils of the benefits of signing up to the commitment.

Speaking at the workshop Stephen Didsbury, head of waste and street service at the London Borough of Bexley, said: “The commitment helped focus our minds on the businesses in the borough and how we could support and encourage recycling in the business community.”

Also at the event attendees identified potential barriers that local authorities face when signing up.

A key theme for local authorities was the lack of resources in the current economic climate however WRAP claimed that signing up could provide them with significant advantages including revenue generation, reduced costs through action taken against misuse of household services and improved service to its existing customers.

Meanwhile others raised concerns that SMEs face the constraints of time and existing contractual agreements which could restrict their involvement with local authority schemes.

Solutions

At present, almost half of local authorities offer trade waste recycling services to businesses, meaning that SMEs often struggle to access affordable schemes because they do not create large quantities of waste.

However, WRAP said there were several options available to councils and SMEs to resolve this.

To councils concerned about congestion at household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) it was suggested that one solution was to open site earlier or later specifically for businesses and restrict access as weekends.

Providing central recycling points for clusters of businesses on industrial estates is also something it suggests. This solution had been previously highlighted by recycling minister Lord Taylor (see letsrecycle.com story) who encouraged businesses to band together to take advantage of economies of scale.