STRATEGY:Further criticism from councils over waste strategy

The document published by Defra last Thursday (May 24, 2007), was welcomed in part but attracted criticism for failing to address how local authorities would be able to fund new initiatives (see letsrecycle.com).

LARAC

LARAC's chairman Lee Marshall has also hit out at the plans to make financial
incentives for household recycling “revenue-neutral” and said not considering charging was “the easy route” (see letsrecycle.com).

He added: “We will obviously be working closely with local authorities to prepare a detailed response on the consultation on incentives, but I would be surprised if we don’t end up asking for more than it is currently giving us.

“The strategy is also thin on how we are going to fund the new infrastructure to deliver its aims if we cannot do that directly through householders. They are still not paying for the true cost of waste collection and disposal,” he said.

London Councils

Councillor Daniel Moylan, chairman of London Councils’ Transport and Environment Committee, feared the proposed targets for recycling (see letsrecycle.com story)would be unworkable in London because of the many flats and a highly mobile population.

He said: “We believe that the government’s continuing reliance on crude recycling targets is misdirected and lacks imagination.”

London Councils welcomed the new target for waste minimisation but said it was still the “Cinderella option in terms of resources and incentives” and that “if households knew there was an upper limit to the amount of non-recyclable waste they could put out, there could be a revolution in both attitudes and achievement.”

Biffa

Peter Jones, Biffa's director of external affairs, said the greater emphasis on hard targets compared to the last strategy in 2000, meant that a “number of poorly performing local authorities will be shaken to the core by the sharp upward twist in the diversion percentages”. He also applauded efforts to integrate the estimated 400 bodies defining how waste is collected from homes.

Community sector

The community sector was mainly positive when it came to the strategy. The government pledged to increase the share of local authority contract work won by the third sector and promised to apply social benefit clauses to waste management contracts.

Matthew Thomson of The London Community Recycling Network (CRN) said: “From food waste to compost, from energy-from-waste to public engagement, and from re-use to source-separated collection, the community sector is at the heart of Government plans to prevent waste and increase recycling.

“We welcome the promises and look forward to working with London’s local authorities, WRAP and other partners to make this vision a reality,” he added.

Re-use

And Paul Smith of The Furniture Re-use Network praised the plans to count re-use in local authority targets and to emphasis re-use in household bulky waste services.

He said: “We are delighted that Defra has listened to the representations we have made over the last year. We believe that the third sector is ready to take on an expanded role in delivering high quality, customer focused services which maximise re-use and will also play a significant role in reducing poverty and social exclusion.”

Food waste

But the Community Composting Network (CCN) had hoped to see Defra take more action on food waste.

Group spokesman Nick McAllister said: “While we welcome the fact that Defra acknowledges the arguments for separate food waste collections, it is a shame they are not backing this up with real drivers.
“Separate collection of food waste allows quality materials to be sent for anaerobic digestion or composting and allows for an easier introduction of fortnightly residual collection,” he added.