It’s official, Wales is the UK’s pacesetter. Figures just released show municipal recycling has passed 43 per cent, reflecting a real political commitment to the waste hierarchy. Now, following May’s elections, the question is will the next administration maintain this impetus?

Announcing details of his new cabinet, First Minister Carwyn Jones acclaimed his new team: “I am delighted to have appointed such a talented and able team to deliver on our commitments to the people of Wales.” Amongst them stood John Griffiths, the new Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development with a slightly different portfolio to that of his predecessor (and former Resource HOT 100 winner!), Jane Davidson. Although housing is now longer part of his remit, the new minister, giving us his first official interview, immediately emphasises sustainable development is right at the heart of it and “continues to be key to everything that the Welsh Government does”.

Having trodden the well-worn route into politics, after working as a solicitor specialising in criminal law, personal injury and general civil litigation, which he says gave him “good preparation” for the rigours of government, John Griffiths has always had sustainability in view. He showed an interest in environmental matters in 2002 when as deputy economic development minister, he launched the Green Dragon standard, which aimed to encourage businesses to be more aware of environmental matters, while all the time being a “religious recycler” himself. Indeed, as a lifelong resident of Newport, and supporter of the city’s third-sector waste group Wastesavers, Griffiths has seen first hand the development of successful waste management (and cross-sector partnership) over the years.

Yet, for all of this previous involvement in the subject matter, the detail of waste and resources industry is still new. The minister acknowledges with a smile that working through the complexity of the portfolio takes time. “Initially, it certainly has been a world of briefings and meetings and reading up on documentation. It can be very technical. But, of course, we have many officials here who have a great deal of technical expertise and they’re able to provide some very useful briefings and back-up.”

Of more concern to Griffiths right now, it seems, is maintaining his focus on people and actually getting the resource message across in a non-condescending and accessible way: “I think it’s also useful to have a non-technical head, as it were, because when you’re talking to communities and people in the street, in terms of raising awareness and getting the right messages across and getting that key behavioural change, I think it’s really important that we speak a language people do understand.” It’s a theme he returns to on more than one occasion. His portfolio involves the physical environment, but it’s how people think and act in relation to it that requires the focus.

Following the acquisition of legislative powers, the Welsh Government has committed councils to ambitious targets, including a goal to recycle 70 per cent of waste by 2025. By 2050, it hopes to achieve zero waste and reduce greenhouse gases by 85 per cent. It is also keen to develop renewable energy, with the National Assembly for Wales calling for new planning law to ensure all public-sector organisations consider the environment before building social housing, refurbishing hospitals or setting the national curriculum. These are impressive aims and values, so how will Griffiths keep up the momentum? Inevitably, it requires more than just political will: “I think we’ve achieved a considerable amount already but, as ever with government, there is still quite a lot to do. Government cannot do everything on its own. Obviously it can guide, it can set policy and strategy and often that’s necessarily done at fairly high level, but to actually make it work on
the ground we rely, obviously, on our key partners, but also, on communities and people themselves. This sort of progress has resulted from collaboration, cooperation and partnership.”

Listening to Mr Griffiths, it’s clear the advantage he sees in Wales fostering a ‘team’ ethos. But what else is needed to sustain progress? After all, the trends of recycling have slowed in many countries, notably as they close in or reach 50 per cent. He points out that this doesn’t have to be the case. Some parts of Europe are already achieving 70 per cent diversion of municipal waste. For these, staying focused on the waste hierarchy is key: “We want to ensure that that element of residual waste that needs to be dealt with in another way is absolutely minimised and easy options aren’t taken to deal with waste (that could and should be recycled) in other less advantageous ways.

“Reuse is crucially important and it’s fairly obviously the case that it’s efficient and effective if you can get very good reuse policies in place. You’re not using the resource that you would be in terms of recycling, for example, and it’s a very direct and obvious way of using something in a new way that may well have been produced for another reason.”

Acknowledging the role of third-sector organisations in this field, he adds: “So I think it makes perfect sense and the more reuse we can get the better, so I’d certainly want to prioritise that.”

Yet, at a time of fiscal contraction, the environment seems to be taking a hit. Certainly Defra has faced deeper cuts than almost any other Whitehall department. Mr Griffiths is adamant that the Welsh Government is still committed to its green agenda: “I think our prioritisation of environmental policies is crystal clear, has been and will be and, again, our commitment to sustainable development and our statutory duty make it our central organising principle in terms of our sustainable development scheme.

“Good waste policy can cut costs for local authorities and others very substantially and also can generate substantial income around recycling products, for example, and foster local businesses and green jobs. So economically it absolutely stacks up. I hope and very much expect that we won’t see any diminution in our commitment and policy on the environment in Wales.”

To this end he observes maintaining material quality is essential, and reliant on the role people play. Again, it’s the human dimension that comes to the fore in his thinking on the issue. “We need to look even more closely at what really impacts on peoples’ everyday quality of life in terms of their local environment and make real improvements there that people identify with and appreciate,” he says, ”then we can get that greater buy-in to the policies that must succeed if we’re going to have the environment all the people of Wales want for the future. Waste policy I think is going to be a really, really important part of that and I would like to get people in Wales to buy in to an even greater extent to our waste policy and our recycling efforts. It’s crucial that we get our sector plans rolling out and making a real difference because municipal waste is obviously very important but commercial and industry waste is very important too and we need to drive forward on all fronts.”

These sector plans currently differentiate waste policy in Wales from the rest of the UK, offering a detailed blueprint for action. They represent a translation of political will and a willingness to lead with a vision of waste as a resource, but the new minister is clear where the main driver for action lies. He reflects: “People very quickly understand the environment, the environmental imperatives, and there’s so much in the media now about climate change, about the importance of the environment that there’s no excuse for anybody not understanding what’s at stake. In my experience people readily understand the challenges and want to be part of meeting those challenges.”

In particular he recognises the potential of ‘pester power’: “I do think children are wonderful at spreading messages to their own families about the importance of the environment, the importance to recycle, the importance of not dropping litter, of understanding the problems of waste.
“But I also think people generally expect government at all levels to put in place systems that make it as easy as possible for them to play their part: it’s about education but it’s also about efficient and effective systems.”

And the key to this? “Having an all-encompassing approach and understanding how everything we do in Wales impacts on our environment and that ecological footprint is of vital importance to us and absolutely in line with our commitment to sustainable development. I think most people in Wales would say we’re lucky to live in a very beautiful country and we want to keep it that way.”