Environment Minister Sue Essex launched consultation on the strategy in Newport yesterday where she said: “The strategy should lift Wales from being one of the worst performers in Europe, to being one of the best.”
Sue Essex: aiming to raise Welsh recycling performance
The draft suggests that 39 materials recovery facilities, 22 composting facilities and nine energy from waste plants will need to be built to enable local authorities to meet the 2020 targets.
The document, prepared for the National Assembly of Wales, calls on councils to introduce kerbside collections and says that the composting targets of 10% and 15% for 2006/7 and 2009/10 will require local authorities to collect kitchen waste from households.
The strategy has been published for consultation by the Assembly in a bid to improve the recycling rate in Wales which is currently one of the lowest in Europe. Of the 1.5 million tonnes of municipal waste produced in Wales around 5% is recycled and the rest is landfilled. Instead of having statutory targets local authorities will form “Policy Agreements” with the Assembly which will outline how their recycling rates will increase. But, the Assembly has warned in the document that if there is evidence that sufficient progress is not being made it will consider setting statutory Best Value Performance Standard targets.
Over 40 million is being provided by the Assembly in the next three years to help local authorities to meet targets.
Targets
The preferred targets for municipal waste are:
- by 2003/04 achieve 15% recycling/composting of municipal waste with a minimum of 5% composting (with only compost derived from source segregated materials counting) and 5% recycling;
- by 2006/07 achieve 25% recycling/composting of municipal waste with a minimum of 10% composting and 10% recycling;
- by 2009/10 achieve 40% recycling/composting of municipal waste with a minimum of 15% composting and 15% recycling.
The Assembly has said that to meet targets “local authorities will need to introduce comprehensive schemes for the separate kerbside collection of recyclable and compostable materials” and has suggested that councils adopt a phased approach to the composting targets. The Assembly predicts that the 5% target for 2003/4 can be achieved by collecting green waste at the kerbside and at civic amenity sites but to reach the higher composting targets for 2006/7 and 2009/10 local authorities will need to introduce schemes to collect kitchen waste.
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