LARAC made the comments in its response to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)s consultation on the Waste Prevention Programme, which ran from March 11 to April 29 2013.
And, the organisation suggested that the removal of waste targets for England had helped cause the nations recycling performance to plateau, whereas Wales and Scotland continue to perform better year on year as they have set new targets.
However, although LARAC voiced support for setting waste prevention targets in England in its consultation response, it said it would be cautious around any targets based purely on weight, as this does not always recognise the complexities of what we are dealing with.
Outlining what it saw as barriers to waste prevention in the UK, LARAC highlighted historic short-termism from government, and highlighted the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)s 250 million Weekly Collection Support Scheme, which was created in February 2012.
In November 2012, 85 councils in the UK were granted financial support through the scheme in order to retain or introduce some form of waste collection service on a weekly basis, which communities secretary Eric Pickles said would help more than six million families.
“Government needs to make real efforts to ensure that all departments are publicly lined up behind this proposed waste prevention plan”.
LARAC
However, LARAC said in its consultation response that the scheme was ostensibly to support the reinstatement of weekly residual collections but that it failed in its perceived intention, as authorities continue to migrate towards alternate weekly collection services which have a proven track record of improving recycling and driving down residual wastes.
As a result, the Committee said that the Waste Prevention Plan should be skilfully launched and set itself away from what many consider was a lost opportunity represented by the scheme.
LARAC stated that: Government needs to make real efforts to ensure that all departments are publicly lined up behind this proposed waste prevention plan.
Looking to the future, the Committee also called for the development of a consistent reporting system to demonstrate the effectiveness of waste prevention activities.
LARAC commented: For local authorities the starting point needs to be development of the current Wastedataflow linking other systems which capture the movement of all material from mining through production and disposal.
Composting
LARAC also praised the huge success nationally of promoting home composting, but said that in order to prevent waste, garden waste and similar material would be best composted in situ rather than collected for composting.
However, although LARAC suggested that encouraging real nappy recycling had so far been less effective than encouraging home composting, it said this was starting to change due to falling costs associated with real nappies.
Waste Prevention Programme
The Waste Prevention Programme is scheduled to be published by December 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story) and is being developed jointly by Defras waste and sustainable consumption and production teams.
EU member states are required to develop national waste prevention plans by the end of 2013, as enshrined in Article 29 of the revised EU Waste Framework Directive, which formally took effect in the UK in December 2010.
As part of the newly-statutory five-step waste hierarchy, the Directive also includes a legal requirement for waste prevention – including reuse – to be the first preference in all waste policy and infrastructure decisions.
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