Central government has revealed today (12 January) that it currently has ‘no plans to reintroduce statutory recycling targets for local authorities’, despite calls for it to do so.

The statement comes in the government response to the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee’s inquiry into waste management in England, which was launched last year.

Inquiry details

The inquiry was launched in March 2014 after Resource Minister Dan Rogerson wrote to members of the waste and resources industry warning them that the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) would be ‘stepping back’ from areas of waste policy where businesses are ‘better placed to act’ and there is ‘no clear market failure’.

In light of this, EFRA consulted with members of the waste and resources sector to understand the impacts this may have on municipal waste management in England, including whether England would be able to reach the EU recycling targets and whether England’s national recycling targets should be higher than those stipulated by the EU.

Its findings were released in October 2014, and revealed the committee’s belief that England will not ‘play its role in meeting the European requirement for the United Kingdom to recycle at least 50 per cent of its household waste by 2020 without significant government intervention’.

Government response

As such, the EFRA committee called on Defra to do more to boost confidence in the sector through a range of actions, the responses to which are detailed below:

• considering introducing refreshed policies and reintroducing requirements such as ‘statutory recycling targets for local authorities’

Government has stated that it ‘currently has no plans to reintroduce statutory recycling targets for local authorities’ and that it believes ‘local authorities should lead on determining the most appropriate recycling arrangements for their area’.

• ‘actively reassuring interested parties that waste policy remains a priority’ and clarifying its definition and interpretation of ‘clear market failure’ and which areas businesses are ‘better placed to act’

In response to this recommendation, central government has said that ‘market failure' refers to ‘a situation where the market has not and cannot of itself be expected to deliver an efficient outcome, including situations where there are indirect effects on others for which the market cannot take account’.

It added that ‘in the case of resource management, there is a clear rationale for public involvement in managing general waste from diffuse sources, e.g. from households, because of the adverse indirect effects of waste on public health and hygiene, and so on’.

The response went on to outline that where business generates waste, there is ‘a responsibility on them to take the lead in efficiently managing any impacts and disposal’, but if there is no progress being made on this, central government will ‘seek to establish whether or not there is an identifiable market failure [such as ‘misaligned incentives’] and if and/or how this can be corrected’.

• ‘appointing a minister with ‘clear responsibility for co-ordinating across all governmental departments and ensuring consistency of approach in terms of legislation, policy, incentives and communications’

Central government responded to this recommendation by highlighting that Dan Rogerson ‘remains the Minister with the clear responsibility for resource use and management policy’ (he was appointed the joint bioeconomy ‘Champion’ last month) and that Defra's ‘cross-Whitehall Resource Programme Steering Group’, will ‘continue to collaborate, share and discuss key and relevant resource policy issues’.

• promoting communication campaigns to keep householders engaged with recycling, and as such, increasing funding to WRAP [the Waste & Resources Action Programme] and Keep Britain Tidy in future

Although it has not identified any specific figures, central government said it ‘continues to support the Waste & Resources Action Programme’, but adds that Keep Britain Tidy is an ‘independent charity and has made good progress over the past four years in identifying and securing alternative sources of funding to support its work’.

It added that government will ‘continue to monitor local environment quality across England and will commission specific projects as appropriate’.

• considering making it compulsory for all local authorities and waste companies to publish an annual Register of End Destination of Recyclates (such as that launched by the Resource Association)

Although central government said it supports the Resource Association’s End Destinations of Recycling Charter and ‘applaud[s] those authorities that have published information through the Charter’, it has no plans to introduce a compulsory scheme.

However, the response revealed that the government is implementing a new reporting facility through WasteDataFlow to enable local authorities to record all treatments and final destinations of residual, recycling, reuse and composting waste through a single question [Question 100]. A voluntary roll-out was made to 59 local authorities in England in April 2014, but this will be extended to all LAs from April 2015.

• moving towards banning the landfilling of all recyclable waste by 2025 to boost recycling rates

While agreeing that landfill should be the ‘last resort for most wastes’, government said it believed that there were ‘more efficient options than restrictions in this area’ and warned that restrictions could ‘impose additional costs on businesses, particularly SMEs’.

It added that only once the European Commission’s revised circular economy package is released would central government have ‘sufficient clarity to consider what further action, including on support and infrastructure, will be necessary to meet future EU measures’. (Government also said that it wants to ‘ensure that the Commission's anticipated new proposal to promote circular economy will allow flexibility, ensure that costs are justified by expected impacts and create an environment that welcomes innovation’.)

• encouraging separately collected food waste to anaerobic digestion ‘to address the problem of sourcing waste feedstock’

The response outlines that government believes waste prevention should come first, followed by redistribution, but that ‘there cannot be a one size fits all approach as local circumstances require local solutions and a tailored approach’.

However, it added it ‘remains keen to promote good practice and look at how food recycling can be made more convenient for residents’.

• ensuring that only ‘genuinely residual waste’ is sent to energy-from-waste plants and to do more to encourage the use of heat outputs from such facilities to improve the overall energy efficiency of this waste management method

In a short response to these recommendations, government said that ‘gate fees are one of the mechanisms used to ensure that only genuinely residual waste is sent to energy from waste plants’ and that it ‘fully support[s] the use of heat outputs from incinerators to gain maximum efficiencies from incineration processes’. (It added that the Energy from Waste Guide ‘makes it clear that incinerators should look to utilising the heat in addition to the electricity they generate in order to maximise the benefits of energy generation in the longer term’.)

• issuing ‘clear guidance’ on how much waste treatment capacity is needed in England to gain an optimal balance between the export of refuse-derived fuel and local treatment

Again, government said that only once ‘EU negotiations on any new proposal have substantively concluded’ would government have ‘sufficient clarity to consider what further action, including on support and infrastructure, will be necessary to meet future EU measures’.

• taking action to curb the frequent occurrence of fires at waste management sites

The government response reveals that central government has ‘called for speedier and tougher enforcement action by the Environment Agency [EA] to address waste crime and poorly performing waste sites and the risks posed by stockpiled wastes and recurring fires at waste management sites’.

It added that the EA has started to increase its regulatory compliance and enforcement activity, particularly at ‘high-risk waste fire sites’ and is currently consulting on changes to its charging regime to reflect this.

Government also stated that Defra is ‘currently evaluating the case for a number of regulatory changes that will widen the scope of existing Environment Agency enforcement powers’.

Industry 'disappointed' with response

Members of the waste and resources sector have voiced disappointment with the government response, with the Environmental Services Association’s (ESA) Executive Director, Jacob Hayler, stating: “It is disappointing that Defra remains focused narrowly on meeting our European targets and continues to forego opportunities for the UK to take a lead on resource issues. It is apparent from its response to the EFRA Committee report that the Government continues to see waste as a potential cost and not an opportunity.

“We should not be waiting for Europe to show us how to exploit the untapped value in our waste resources. We should be putting in place the framework now to maximise the jobs and investment which could flow from building a modern and competitive circular economy in the UK.”

He added: “If Defra truly believes its own rhetoric about supporting options higher up the waste hierarchy and recovering value from waste then it needs to do more to help create the right investment conditions to maximise the use of our secondary resources.”

The Chief Executive of the Resource Association, Ray Georgeson, also commented, saying: “We welcomed the EFRA Committee’s excellent report and their call for statutory reporting of end destination of recyclate and are naturally disappointed that this is not being taken up by Defra, but we are pleased to see progress in this area with specific support for our End Destination of Recycling Charter and the proposal from Defra to incorporate end destination reporting into a single question (Question 100) in WasteDataFlow. We continue to encourage councils and their contractors to see the benefits of greater transparency of information on end destination, as part of the necessary improvement in public confidence in the recycling process that is part of what is needed to give flatlining recycling rates a vital boost.”

He continued: “Beyond this, we remain disappointed and unsurprised at the lack of vision and ambition for English waste policy that is reflected in the government’s response... We are an industry hungry for leadership from government, but for now building our own cross-industry consensus on policy priorities must be paramount as we prepare for the General Election and also the possibility of fresh policy proposals from the EU Commission.”

Read the full government response to the EFRA committee inquiry into waste management in England.