Voluntary waste approach takes shape
Defra is ruling out regulation in favour of UK-wide voluntary deals to encourage less waste.
Voluntary deals to encourage companies to produce less waste will be the main UK-wide outcomes from last year’s review of waste policy. The review was launched by Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman in July 2010 and reported in June 2011.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is responsible for waste policy in England but is working with the devolved administrations to share ideas around the UK, including the development of voluntary responsibility deals for the hospitality sector and for direct mail, textiles, and construction waste.
Officials are reporting good progress on the review’s main commitments, which include also:
• developing a full waste prevention programme for businesses by December 2013;
• encouraging councils to sign new recycling and waste services commitments, setting out the principles they will follow in delivering waste services; and
• scrapping bin fines and taxes while bringing in powers to deal with repeat fly-tipping offenders.
Spelman said: “People want to do the right thing by reducing waste and recycling at home or out and about, and we want to help them. This means making sure communities are getting the collection services they want and not penalising hard-working households who make minor mistakes by putting bins out on the wrong day or leaving a plastic tub in the wrong recycling box.”
The Coalition Agreement commits the Government to “work towards a zero waste economy and encourage councils to pay people to recycle and reduce littering” and “measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion”.
Food and packaging waste has been earmarked as a priority: the production, distribution and disposal of a tonne of food waste causes the equivalent of 3.8 tonnes of CO2. Avoidable food waste also costs hotels, pubs and restaurants £722 million each year.
The hospitality and food service voluntary agreement was launched in June, with the support of the Government and the devolved administrations. The agreement commits signatories to reducing food and packaging waste by 5 per cent by the end of 2015.
Defra estimates that if a quarter of the sector signed up, greenhouse gas savings would total 570,000 tonnes of CO2 and cost savings would reach
£76 million.
“I believe that through collaborative working we can achieve much more, more quickly than through traditional policy tools such as regulation,” junior Minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach remarked at the launch.
Friends of the Earth wants councils to adopt fortnightly bin rounds, which may be less convenient for householders but would make people think more carefully about the amount of waste they are generating. It also wants the Government to go further, with a goal to halve residual ‘black bag’ waste by 2020, through recycling, waste prevention and re-use, rather than simply focussing on recycling.
