Supplementary letter to Joan Walley MP
from Councillor Kay Twitchen
I was very grateful to you for suggesting that
I write to the Committee, following our submission of evidence
on Wednesday 15 January, to mention some of the points which there
was not time to discuss.
As far as the LGA is concerned, there are one
or two quite minor issues upon which it would be helpful to have
clarification from the government. They are as follows:
1. Whilst we are urged to encourage and
support home composting, any waste diversion achieved through
this method does not count in our recycling targets. The LGA is
firmly of the view that to encourage the inclusion of waste from
gardens into the domestic waste stream is not helpful in terms
of the overall environmental impact, yet the way our recycling
targets are set encourages waste collection authorities to do
just that. In the circumstances, if the targets were adjusted
to take account of diversion of waste achieved through encouragement
of home composting this would have a beneficial environmental
impact.
2. At the moment, soil and hardcore arising
even from private domestic homes is not classified as municipal
waste and therefore cannot be legally deposited at Civic Amenity
sites. This is particularly unfortunate since it is eminently
recyclable, and householders who have undertaken small building
projects themselves expect to be able to deposit the residues
at their local Civic Amenity site. We would like the government
to look at the reclassification of this particular waste.
3. We feel that the way the recycling targets
are set at the moment, being purely weight-based, mitigates against
the collection of plastics, which are light but eminently recyclable.
We would ask for a more balanced way of expressing the targets
so that there was an incentive for the collection of plastics
from households.
4. We feel it would be helpful if we could
have, as soon as possible, clarity over the Animal By-products
Order and how we are to treat kitchen waste which is collected
separately for composting. Even quite simple in-vessel compost
plants do involve considerable capital outlay, and contractors
are reluctant to commit to composting this type of material until
they know exactly what will be the licensing requirements.
5. I was able to show the Committee an example
of general household waste which had been subjected to an anaerobic
digestion process in Germany, the residues of which can be landfilled
in Germany since they are classified as inert waste. If, in this
country, we are to encourage local authorities to consider new
technologies, we do need to have clarity about what would be the
classification of the output material. For this reason we would
like DEFRA to engage with the Environment Agency in discussing
how these classifications might be achieved so that local authorities
have a clearer understanding of the ways forward which are available
to them.
6. The Committee was aware that the percentage
increases in the EPCS block of local government finance make it
very difficult for local authorities to find the funds to achieve
accommodation of increasing waste volumes and compliance with
a raft of European directives. These include the Animal By-products
Order, the Landfill Directive, the End of Life Vehicles Directive,
the Ozone Depleting Substances Regulations, and the Waste Electrical
and Electronic Equipment Directive. All of these define the ways
in which local authorities are required to deal with waste arising
from households, and thus involve increased costs. Yet the percentage
increases of the EPCS block of allowance for the next three years
are 5.3%, 2.8%, and 3.3% respectively. Since the EPCS block covers
a number of other areas of expenditure (flood defence, emergency
planning, community safety, trading standards and consumer protection,
libraries/museums etc) we are concerned that local authorities
will be unable to meet the new regulatory regime from current
funding streams.
7. The Committee is aware that in Waste
Strategy 2000 there was a suggestion that waste disposal authorities
should be empowered to require waste collection authorities to
deliver materials to them in segregated form in order to facilitate
recycling. This suggestion has never been developed, and it is
mentioned once again in "Waste Not, Want Not". This
would be an extremely helpful development and we would like the
government to act upon it.
8. The LGA feels that there is considerable
confusion arising in waste management issues from the fact that
various parts of the service are governed by ODPM, DTI and DEFRA—not
to mention the Treasury. We feel that a single point of responsibility
for waste issues within government would be helpful.
January 2003
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