Councils in Wales are going to be pushed towards adopting source separated recycling collections in a move which the Welsh Assembly Government has acknowledged is not universally popular.
Speaking at the LARAC Conference and Celebration Awards yesterday (November 4), Russell Owens, waste strategy officer at the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG), said that government would be encouraging councils to move across to kerbside sort systems under its Municipal Waste Sector Plan.
And, Mr Owens said that the preferred collection method for the country is an alternate fortnightly collection of residual waste, weekly collection of dry recyclables and a weekly collection of food waste. This would include a source separated collection for the dry recyclables, he added..
He said: “Some people say we are being prescriptive but we say we are being sustainable in providing leadership. Our blueprint is fortnightly collections of residual waste, weekly collection of recyclables and weekly collections of food waste and the promotion of bulky waste collections in essence of preparing materials for reuse.”
Of the 22 Welsh local authorities, only nine currently operated a kerbside sort system with the remainder either possessing a twin stream or commingled collection of a range of materials.
Opposition
Explaining the reasoning behind the proposed move, Mr Owens said that the evidence base used by the WAG – which included research carried out by WRAP – indicated that kerbside sort collections were preferred due to greater carbon and economic savings than commingled methods.
However, he acknowledged that there was some opposition to the approach, most noticeably from councils such as Denbighshire county borough council, which has already launched a campaign to protect its commingled collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
And, he recognised that it was not going to be an immediate process. He said: “It is not going to happen immediately, it is going to happen over time, it is over the long term of the waste strategy.”
Responding to questions from the floor, Phil Robson, waste and recycling officer at City of Westminster council, questioned how the WAG could justify a “one-size fits all approach”, especially given the coalition government's support for greater local autonomy.
Mr Owens said: “There is a difference between the coalition government in Westminster and the coalition government in Cardiff; in Cardiff we don't have a localism agenda. When it comes down to service provision we have said what we would prefer and we have also said that we may preferentially fund those that follow our blueprint.”
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