The Welsh Government has published a draft version of its guidance on separate collections, recycling quality and TEEP. And, the government has warned that the regulations set a high bar for local authorities to overcome if they want to justify commingled collections.
Launched for consultation today (April 28), the guidance sets out the conditions the Welsh Government believes local authorities or private waste contractors should meet to collect paper, metal, plastic and glass for recycling in order to comply with the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations.
The regulations state that separate collections of at least those four materials are required if technically, environmentally and economically practicable (TEEP) and appropriate to meet the necessary quality standards for the relevant recycling sectors.
So far local authorities have been given little indication as to how the regulations will be enforced, with fears of a legal challenge should they interpret the law incorrectly beyond January 2015.
In England, Defra had also been working on its own statutory guidance, but opted not to publish the document in January (see letsrecycle.com story). The Welsh Governments guidance only applies to councils within Wales, meaning it can provide no legal defence for English local authorities.
Commingling
According to the Welsh Governments document today, although the 2011 Waste Regulations do not prohibit the use of commingled collections of the four waste streams from 2015 they establish that separate collection is the default position that collection authorities and contractors must adopt.
And, while the Regulations do set out the conditions under which collection systems can move away from the separate collection default, they establish a high bar by which these conditions can be met.
The guidance document goes on to state: The requirement for separate collection does not mean that a separate bin is needed for each material. Separate collection can be done, for example, through a mixture of household/business sort and kerbside sort as well as from bring sites and civic amenity sites.
It adds that the terms necessary and practicable as used in the regulations are value judgements which will need to take into account local conditions and look at what can be achieved in comparable situations elsewhere in Wales or the rest of the UK.
Meanwhile, the Welsh Government has said that the requirements do not impose an all or nothing approach to collections, with considerations to be made for what is practicable for individual locations within an authority area.
Practicability
It goes on to state that authorities should consider to what extent separate collection is practicable and whether it would improve quantity and quality of material collected, with separate collection noted as being the most likely method to achieve better a environmental outcome.
Councils are also instructed to review any decisions taken over TEEP before January 2015 and to ensure that these are then reviewed from time to time most likely when renewing collection contracts or other changes to waste infrastructure.
The consultation document adds: Two or more of the waste streams may be collected using a commingled system if the system achieves high quality recycling. The bench-mark of high quality should be taken as meaning that the recyclate is similar in both quality and quantity to that achieved with good separate collection and is therefore able or capable to be used by reprocessors for turning back into a product of similar quality to what it was originally.
Examples of high quality recycling are listed as the use of recovered glass in re-melt applications; the separation of plastics into individual polymers for producing new food and drink containers, and; recovered paper for the production of new paper products.
Following the launch of the draft guidance for consultation today stakeholders have been given until July 21 2014 to respond to the issues raised within the document.
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