The comments came after DCLG minister Brandon Lewis said that the Welsh Government had enacted an official policy forcing councils to adopt fortnightly collections of residual waste and also criticised Welsh councils proposing monthly collections of waste (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Lewis was defending the Departments record on waste collection after the Daily Mail newspaper claimed that DCLG had betrayed voters over the issue, and that five million homes had lost weekly waste collections since the Coalition Government came to power in 2010.
In response, the Welsh Government has stated that fortnightly collection of waste is not an official government policy, with local authorities instead given the freedom to determine collection frequency based on local need.
All of the collection authorities in Wales have opted to implement fortnightly waste collections, while Gwynedd (see letsrecycle.com story) and Cardiff (see letsrecycle.com) have both consulted on introducing a less frequent service.
A spokesman for the Minister for Natural Resources, Alun Davies, said: Brandon Lewis needs to get his facts right. The Welsh Government has no plans to enforce monthly collections of residual waste. It is for local authorities to decide what frequency of waste works best for their community.
All Welsh councils have chosen to implement fortnightly residual waste collections, which, coupled with weekly food waste collections for 96% of the Welsh population, has led to Wales leading the way with the best recycling rates in the UK and a continued decrease in the amount of black bin waste produced by each household.
Bin Bible
DCLG has also come under fire in recent months after it published its controversial bin bible, which argues in favour of weekly collections of residual waste and seeks to bust 10 myths which the Department claims have emerged in favour of less frequent collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
Upon publication, several waste sector figures criticised the guidance as a threat to the rights enshrined by the Localism Act.
After his speech at the Furniture Reuse Networks conference in Nottinghamshire last week (March 13) (see letsrecycle.com story) letsrecycle.com asked the minister whether the document undermined the work of local authorities to improve their recycling rates through fortnightly collections.
Responding to the question Mr Pickles replied simply that his detractors were wrong.
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