Here’s some food for thought: in 2012, a law was laid requiring all local authorities in England and Wales to separately collect waste paper, metal, plastic and glass from 1 January 2015, where necessary to facilitate or improve recovery, and where technically, environmentally and economically practicable (TEEP). But, to date, not one English council has moved from co-mingled to separate collections. Why? Ignorance cannot be the excuse. The law has been knocking about in one form or another for more than six years – in 2008, the European Commission’s revised Waste Framework Directive (rWFD) required member states to set up separate collections of ‘at least’ paper, metal, plastic and glass by 2015, where TEEP and ‘appropriate to meet the necessary quality standards for the relevant recycling sectors’. It was subsequently transposed into English and Welsh law in 2011. Confusingly, though, the transposition originally stated that co-mingling was a form of separate collection, and the wording was amended a year later after the Campaign for Real Recycling (CRR) launched a judicial review. The Waste (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 then came into force on 1 October 2012. No English authority has moved to kerbside sort While this amendment makes it abundantly clear that separate collections are now the preferred collection method, uptake in Wales and England has been markedly different. Not one waste collection authority (WCA) in England has moved from co-mingled to separate collections since the Waste Regulations came into effect. (When I contacted Defra for a comment, its response merely outlined that it will “continue to support local authorities’ efforts to promote recycling and [is] working with WRAP to see what more [it] can do and what further measures may be needed to achieve this”.) In fact, 11 councils in England (just under five per cent) have moved in the opposite direction – switching from separate collections to co-mingled/dual-stream collections, with several more, such as Gloucester City Council, considering moving that way, too. It seems that the main reason for the trend is that it’s just not ‘economically practicable’ to switch to separate collections. But if Wales and England are in similar economic situations, why is it that, on the other side of the border, four councils – Powys, Neath Port Talbot, Merthyr Tydfil, and Blaenau Gwent – have already switched or will shortly switch to separate collections? The obvious explanation is government support for the cause. In 2011, the Welsh Government published its Collections Blueprint (the dataset for which is currently being reviewed), highlighting that its preferred approach involves restricting residual waste while collecting dry recyclables on a weekly basis via kerbside sort. It has also explicitly stated that it believes separate collections are possible in all local authority types and, on top of this, has provided funding for councils to implement blueprint-supported recycling collections via its Collaborative Change Programme. Support from Westminster has been less forthcoming. It has offered no funding for separate collections – though it did find a quarter of a billion pounds to entice councils to increase residual waste collection frequency (a move that spectacularly failed after none did so). Moreover, despite saying that it would issue guidance on necessity and TEEP testing, in January 2014 Defra said it “did not believe” there was “a need to issue further guidance”, later stating that authorities should seek their own legal advice to ensure compliance. However, in April 2014, the Welsh Government released its own draft guidance on TEEP, and a WRAP-led working group comprising local authority networks launched a non-statutory ‘route map’ to help councils assess compliance with the regulations. By this point, authorities had just nine months to implement the regulations. While highlighting that some local authorities delayed making decisions on whether or not to change recycling systems “ahead of the [2013] outcome of the judicial review”, Linda Crichton, Head of Resource Management at WRAP, notes that despite the route map and Welsh guidance, confusion still surrounds TEEP specifications. She explains: “In the period up to January 2015, [WRAP] found understanding of the regulations to be mixed, in particular regarding the requirements for the necessity and TEEP tests.” For example, co-mingler Cardiff City Council previously stated it believed the regulations ‘outline the need for separate collections of waste paper, metal, plastic or glass by January 2015 or a robust, evidence- based defence to demonstrate that the current collection methods used can achieve high-quality recycling, whilst also being the best technical, environmental and economically practicable solution’. Crichton clarifies the problem with this approach: “There is a presumption in favour of separate collection in the regulations. So, for example, if an authority decides to continue with a co-mingled collection, the requirement is not to demonstrate that co-mingling is TEEP – it has to be able to demonstrate that separate collection is not necessary or not TEEP for [its] area.” Light touch on enforcement So, what will happen to councils that misapply the law? Well, for the time being, not much, as the government and regulatory bodies are favouring a ‘light touch’ on enforcement. In a briefing note released to councils in December 2014 – just two weeks before the legislation came into effect – the Environment Agency (EA) stated that prosecution for those not complying would be a ‘last resort’ as it is ‘costly and time-consuming to both parties’. Instead, the EA will run through seven intervention measures for non-compliance, starting with an ‘advisory phone call or letter’, before eventually opting for prosecution. An EA spokesperson commented that the aim is not to punish those that don’t comply, but to ensure that recycled materials are “good enough to make new paper, glass, plastics and metal, so helping to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, help the economy and improve the environment”. Its briefing note states: ‘We recognise that collection contracts can run for many years, and that collection infra-structure [sic] can have a long lifespan. Both can be prohibitively expensive to replace. We will act reasonably in considering such matters... Collectors will be required to show that they are taking all reasonable measures to comply with the regulations from January 2015, or within a reasonable time-frame.’  Reiterating this stance, Lee Marshall, CEO of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), says “it will take time for the impact of the Waste Framework Directive requirements to show on local authority collection systems”, adding: “It is obvious that assessments have been undertaken, but that doesn’t mean changes will happen straight away. In these times of large budget cuts, it makes sense to wait for a contract to end or vehicles to reach the end of their useful life so that the costs of changing a collection system can be minimised.” It seems that we’ll have to wait and see what effect the regulations will have in England in the long term; for now, we’ll be looking to Wales to see how effective separate collections are in raising recyclate quality, and perhaps recycling rates, too.

Find out more about the reasons why councils choose to undertaken separate or co-mingled collections.