The warning came yesterday (31 October) in a progress tracker report issued by the Blueprint Coalition, which includes influential environmental groups including ADEPT, Ashden, Green Alliance and Greenpeace.
The report measures government progress against a comprehensive set of recommendations the Blueprint Coalition published in 2020.
These recommendations included how the right help from central government could support local delivery within England for action on climate.
This included suggestions to fund the costs of high-quality recycling collections that are source separated where practicable, support more efficient waste collections and introduce EPR to drive better design and longer life products.
However, in the progress report, the coalition is critical on progress made so far from central government.
There is still a high cost burden on local authorities
- Blueprint Coalition
Slow
The report says: “Some single-use plastic items have been restricted by legislation but progress to address this nationally remains slow. EPR legislation is also moving slowly. As a result, there is still a high cost burden on local authorities.
“There has been no further help to local authorities wishing to restrict frequency of waste collection to encourage reduction and recycling. There is continued reticence from central government to show any leadership to encourage sustainable, healthy diets.”
EPR
The report analysed government success on its waste recommendations using a traffic light system. It deemed none of them to be met.
For EPR, the report said there has been “little indication yet” of the impact the new government will have on EPR and other waste reforms (pace and direction of travel).
The group said it has concerns that plans to reform business waste collections were dropped. It added that it is still unclear how costs will be distributed under plans for full net-cost recovery.
It ranked this as amber, adding that there have been no details yet on what sort of communications work and capacity building of end-markets might accompany / support the reforms.
Red
Recommendations classed as red, which means no progress has been made, related to those which wanted government to “enable local authorities to restrict the frequency of residual waste collections” and provide them with “enforcement powers to improve the quality of materials”.
On collection frequency, the report says: “The last Defra consultation document on consistency highlighted that many local authorities now collect residual waste fortnightly, and a small number collect every three weeks.
“It suggested that the government may introduce a minimum service standard of alternate weekly collection for residual waste (alongside weekly food waste collection), which would represent a reduction in flexibility for local authorities. Not aware of any developments on policy frameworks / legality of ‘pay as you throw’.”
Subscribe for free