Welsh councils warn 70% recycling could cost 30m

Delivering waste services could cost Welsh councils an extra £30 million a year if a new law which makes them legally obligated to reach a 70% municipal waste recycling and composting rate by 2025 is passed by the Welsh Assembly next month, the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) has claimed today (October 27).

The Association said that, if the Waste (Wales) Measure was approved by a plenary session of the Assembly on November 2, they would face additional costs both from trying to meet the goal and from the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) fines they could be hit with if they missed it.

The WAG now plans to use the Waste (Wales) Measure, which was originally unveiled in February 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story) after it received greater autonomy from Westminster on waste policy making, to put these targets, and the power to fine councils if they miss them, into law.

Cost

Criticising this approach, the WLGA claimed that research published on behalf of the WAG by consultants Eunomia in September 2007, entitled ‘Scoping new municipal waste targets for Wales' had shown that, whereas reaching a 60% recycling goal by 2024/25 would cost Welsh councils £159 million for collection and processing, achieving a 70% target would cost them £190 million.

It contrasted the 70% goal with the 50% target for household waste that Wales will be expected to reach by 2020 under the revised EU Waste Framework Directive.

And, it called on the Assembly's plenary to reject the proposed targets, or “at the very least” to support an amendment to the Measure which was rejected at an earlier stage in the legislative process, which would involve the WAG waiving fines for missing the targets if implementing them was “unaffordable”.

Cllr Aled Roberts, the WLGA's environment spokesman, highlighted the improvements in recycling rates that Welsh councils had already achieved and stressed that they were committed to increasing it further.

“However, the cost of achieving an imposed 70% target will raise serious issues for local authorities which could be compounded by the imposition of financial penalties if targets are missed,” he said.

He added: “The Assembly should not be using its legislative powers to impose requirements that cannot be funded or to impose penalties on local authorities for failing to meet targets through no fault of their own.”

WAG

In response to the WLGA's comments, the Welsh Assembly Government stressed that the target would not have to be reached until 70%, and a spokeswoman for the administration went on outline the benefits of setting the target at that level.

“There are good reasons behind this figure – economic as well as environmental. 70% recycling is more cost-effective than lower recycling, because recycling is cheaper than landfilling and because it means we will avoid expensive landfill taxes and fines. In addition the more local authorities recycle the greater their opportunity to make money from selling valuable materials such as metals,” she said.

“What's more, recycling creates significantly more jobs than burying or burning waste. And a report by Friends of the Earth this September showed that if the rest of the UK were to adopt 70%recycling, this would mean more than 50,000 new jobs.

“Wales already has statutory targets for keeping biodegradable waste away from landfill. Every local authority has met every target since their introduction in 2005 and the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill decreased by 39% between 2005-2006 and 2009-2010,” she added.