In a positive address to the Welsh Assembly this week (November 4), Mr Sargeant argued that the blueprint – which would see all councils in Wales use the same colour container for the same type of waste – would deliver ‘higher quality’ collections.
And, while he conceded that there should be a grace period for local authorities to adapt their services to the blueprint model, Mr Sargeant added he would ‘not stand back’ and watch recycling rates decline as a result of doing nothing.
Evidence
Mr Sargeant said: “This is about 22 current authorities operating different systems, and there is a cost involved in each doing that separately. We know—we have evidence, which is in the blueprint—that there are significant cost savings to be made by local authorities if they adopt these models.
“I will give them some more time to consider the blueprint and move into a direction, as I said during my contribution, about how they can start shaping their services to align with the blueprint model, including vehicle procurement et cetera, in order for them to transfer. However, what I will not stand back on is waiting for recycling rates to start to fail and move backwards, and, therefore, we have to make some positive interventions.”
The resources minister went on to congratulate Welsh authorities for their hard work in meeting recycling targets, with their performance meaning the country was now fourth best achieving municipal recycler in Europe.
He explained that since 2001, £607.5 million had been provided to councils to help them deliver the recycling targets.
However, he added that there were further savings to be made – the Collaborative Change Programme had modelled options for six Welsh councils showing potential savings of around £13 million.
Fines
Taking questions from the floor, Mr Sargeant responded to queries whether he would resort to punitive measures – such as fines – for those councils that have not managed to meet EU-led targets.
Mr Sargeant said: “What I have to do is consider, case by case, where authorities are failing and understand the reason behind that. Sometimes, there are effects of different types of communities and the way they recycle. It might be a communications issue or it might be a physical collection issue.
“I cannot be specific on any of the authorities that have breached, but I do look at them very carefully and will consider how we interact with them. There has to be a place in time when we say, ‘If you don’t comply, then there will be a fine mechanism put in place in order for that to happen’. However, that can have a negative effect—by actually not achieving you get a fine and then it is even harder to achieve. So, that is why I am trying to use encouragement as opposed to legislation or a stick at the moment to beat local authorities with.”
2015
Attention will now turn to the new year, with rules surrounding the separate collection of recyclables to come into effect from January 1 2015.
And, in the spring, proposals for new rules on the separation of commercial waste and a ban on some waste streams to energy-from-waste facilities are set to be discussed, which were first announced in the Welsh government’s Environment Bill white paper in 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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