Memorandum submitted by Bath and North
East Somerset Council
Bath and North East Somerset is a mixture of urban
and rural areas. The main urban area is the World Heritage Site
of Bath with two other smaller towns of Keynsham and Radstock/Midsomer
Norton and the rest rural farming land and villages, mostly green
belt and AONB. The methods of kerbside collection are the same
across the district and the "capture" and participation
rates are also similar. The council has been in the forefront
of recycling since the early 1990s and in 2001 became the first
UK local authority to adopt Zero waste as a basis for its waste
strategy.
I first came across Zero Waste at the R99 Conference
in Geneva in 1999 and then again in 2001. Avon Friends of the
Earth, the "not for profit" company which runs Bath
and North East Somerset's recycling operation, submitted a paper
to the council suggesting a three stream recycling strategy and
Zero Waste.
Subsequently, a Liberal Democrat proposal to
Bath and North East Somerset Council's (B&NES) Planning Transport
and Environment Committee on 20 September 2001, to adopt Zero
Waste as the basis for the Council's Waste Strategy, was accepted.
The strategy will be a "flagship" strategy for the rest
of the UK. B&NES was the first local authority in Britain
to adopt Zero Waste and will shortly appoint an experienced practitioner
to formulate a Zero Waste strategy.
The strategy will include an analysis of the
contents of a domestic waste bin to enable us to work out the
different resource streams for recycling and composting. It will
look at different methods to maximise recycling and to reduce
waste from households. It may also be necessary to introduce "variable
charging" once all our recycling systems are in place. We
will also encourage other institutions and businesses to sign
up to Zero Waste. First of all the partners in our LA 21 Initiative—Change
21 will play a leading role in promoting Zero Waste.
The Council has long been at the forefront of
recycling (one of its predecessor authorities Bath City Council
in 1994, became the fourth council in the UK to meet the government
target of 25% recycling). B&NES achieved Beacon Status in
1999 on the strength of its partnerships, mainly with Avon Friends
of the Earth (Avon FoE). In 2001 Avon FoE obtained £250k
of landfill tax funding for trials to collect "green"
waste (including kitchen waste and cardboard) at kerbside. The
trials began on 15 October 2002, with the collection of Garden
waste and cardboard for composting and it is hoped, now that government
guidelines have been issued for composting, to collect kitchen
waste, including cooked food, to be composted in a closed vessel
system. Around the time that the trials began the council gave
away 1,100 composting bins to people over 60 and those on benefits.
All the composting bins were gone within four weeks.
Recycling rates in B&NES are at present
27% on the Government's measure under Best Value, but 33% if rubble
recycling and home composting is included. B&NES has recycling
targets, set by government, of 33% by 2003-04, rising to 36% by
2005-06. The Council has the highest recycling rate of all the
117 unitary authorities and is in ninth position overall.
Our reduction and awareness raising campaign,
Re-Think Rubbish, has been operating since 1999, mainly through
landfill tax funding, and this year the increase in waste arisings
has slowed from 3% to 1%. The funding for the campaign has allowed
us to employ an education officer working mainly in Primary Schools.
Awareness raising in this area has ranged from advertising on
local buses to school competitions, such as the design of a linen
bag to reduce the use of plastic bags. A bag with the winning
slogan of "I may be an old bag, but I'm a bag for life"
is being produced at present and the designer from a local primary
school is now the proud owner of a new bicycle.
We have recycling advisors, managed by the Recycling
Consortium, calling on households where recycling does not take
place—in one area an extra 250 green recycling boxes were
issued in the first few weeks of calling. These advisors have
also been used in an area of houses in multiple occupation, where
there are particular problems, to try to reduce waste by encouraging
recycling. Initial results are encouraging and will be used a
s a "best practice study" for other multiple occupation
areas.
Bids for £1.6 million of Government funding
have been successful. This will mean:
— Collecting plastic bottles at kerbside
throughout the authority by 31 March 2003 and these collections
are about to start. A pilot project, begun in 1994 and gradually
expanded, has meant that the comprehensive scheme can be implemented
quickly.
— A second education officer to promote
reduction and recycling in secondary schools, has been into all
the secondary schools in B&NES and has set up "eco teams"
of pupils to move forward on waste issues. Some of the routes
to and from secondary schools are badly littered, so it is hoped
that pupils' awareness of their environment will be raised by
the actions taken by the "eco teams".
— A pilot project to collect, recondition
and recycle electrical and electronic goods, in partnership with
the Sofa Project and Avon FoE and sell to the people on low incomes,
is in progress. A shop to sell the refurbished goods is about
to open in the centre of Bath.
— A successful bid for £750K to
extend the "garden and cardboard" collection scheme
throughout the authority, will be our share of this year's government
funding. The trials we are undertaking at present will allow us
to roll out the best method of collecting garden/kitchen waste
and cardboard throughout the authority's area.
— The council is looking to establish
a an Environment Park to use the resources from the waste stream
to set up small businesses, to develop a facility, such as MBT
or anaerobic digester to treat the last 10% to 20% of residual
waste.
The council is about to enter into a partnership
with six other European cities in a partnership to exchange information
and best practice in composting. There will be
200,000 of matched funding available to the council
over three years for this project.
One of our aims is to provide a comprehensive
recycling service (at present 10 different materials can be recycled)
and then take action, possibly through "variable charging"
in order to encourage people who do not recycle, to do so. We
hope by that time to have exceeded 50% recycling rate and to have
begun to involve businesses in Zero Waste, particularly in designing
out waste.
Bath and North East Somerset delivers its waste
and recycling services through a number of local partnerships,
which have grown over the years. A long-term integrated waste
contract, which some authorities have entered into, would not
allow the flexibility the council requires in order to respond
in the most sustainable way, to changes in waste.
Bath and North East Somerset Council
13 January 2003
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