Think tank calls for neighbourhood recycling incentives

In the report, titled ‘Time to Waste: Tackling the Landfill Challenge', research was cited which showed that Britain sends 7 million tonnes more rubbish to landfill than any other European country.

It added that the country will run out of landfill space in around 9 years, with London and the South East due to run out in four years.

As a result, the NLGN report argued that the government should provide “positive” incentives for recycling whereby high-performing neighbourhoods received grants to spend on local facilities, such as street lighting or park equipment.

And, the government should “shift” its emphasis onto creating energy from waste through a “new generation of incineration plans” – claiming that 10 large-scale facilities and 200 smaller scale facilities were needed to meet EU landfill diversion targets, it claimed.

Because the plants can be unpopular with local residents, they should be offered a £50 discount of their energy bills if they agreed to host the new plants in their area, it suggested.

In general, the study argued that councils could do more to inform the public about the need to reduce the amount of waste they throw out and how much waste they dispose of each year and how much is recycled, while indicating waste charges separately on council tax bills to highlight how much the council spends on it.

NLGN director Chris Leslie said: “With Landfill Tax increasing year on year and some authorities spending millions of pounds dealing with the problem of rubbish disposal, it is clear that the Government has to adopt a new approach to this challenge. None of the options we looked at are simple but switching away from burying rubbish to creating energy from waste is the greenest, most efficient solution.”

“We also want to see households given a positive incentive to reduce the amount of rubbish they throw away, rather than being persecuted by individual fines. By offering local communities financial incentives, residents would be able to benefit from their locality as well as the wider environment,” he added.

Defra

Responding to the study, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said today that the report “fundamentally misunderstood” government policy on charging.

Earlier this week, Defra confirmed that it was planning to pilot financial recycling incentives, which would see residents charged and rewarded according to the amount of waste they recycle and throw away (see letsrecycle.com story).

The Department argued that the very purpose of the schemes was to provide a positive incentive for recycling, by rewarding good behaviour.

A spokeswoman said: “The report writes the whole thing off as a penalty. Ultimately, this is about rewarding people for doing the right thing and people have a choice to behave differently and not pay a charge.”

Defra's comments were echoed by councillor Paul Bettison, chairman of the Local Government Association's environment board.

He said: “Financial incentive schemes should be exactly what they say on the tin. Any council that looks to introduce these measures will do so to promote recycling and reward local people who do their bit for the environment. No residents need lose out if they are prepared to recycle.”