Examination of Witness (Questions 240-258)
COUNCILLOR ROGER
SYMONDS
WEDNESDAY 12 MARCH 2003
David Taylor
240. I congratulate your council, Mr Symonds,
on the fact that it does have the highest recycling rate of all
the unitary authorities. I think you have said that two years
ago you were the first local authority to adopt Zero Waste as
the strategic target. Can I look briefly at organic waste and
the way in which that has been used to produce composting? In
my own county of Leicestershire, for quite some years there was
the production of something that they called "Lescost",
a composting product which was sold to gardeners and others. Eventually,
it became economically not viable to do that. Regrettably, they
abandoned it. What is your experience on kerbside collections
of organic waste? What sort of market do you find for the compost
that you are producing?
(Cllr Symonds) We have only done a trial so far. W
e actually compost for the household waste recycling centre and
then we sell it back from there. I do not think that has been
particularly successful. One of our local composters has provided
compost as a soil enhancer for the land of local farmers. He seems
to have no problem getting rid of the stuff. He is quite into
composting and can produce different grades. It is wind-row compost;
it is not in vessel. We have trials running at the moment. We
are then going to roll out trials to a pilot project with Government
funding beginning in May for a year, and then hopefully we will
continue to fund that afterwards. That will collect garden waste
and cardboard together. We have vehicles with rotaries. The stuff
will be collected in whellie bins and tipped into the rotary vehicle.
We then start composting, mixing as we go along. Cardboard is
supposed to make a pretty good compost for the soil. We only do
that because there is no market for cardboard; otherwise, we would
collect it and sell it. We have not had any great experience yet.
At the same time as we are doing that, because we do not want
to divert waste into the waste stream which was not there already,
last year we gave away compost bins to the value of £10,000.
These went to elderly persons over 60 and people on benefits and
the bins went in a month, like hot cakes. We are doing the same
this year. People get their composting bins and later on in the
year they will have a collection. There are different sorts of
garden waste. If you are doing prunings from shrubs, and I do
this in my own garden, once every two or three months you take
them to the household waste recycling centre. Those things are
being composted in the bins along with cardboard. There are two
different parts to it. We do not want to encourage people not
to compost. We have promoted that year after year and will continue
to do so. The only things that have not worked are the wormeries.
They were not that successful. We are now up to 28% When I wrote
this the figure was 23% We are moving up all the time.
241. It has been very interesting to hear how
you have given incentives and encouraged your population to compost.
We are going to hear evidence shortly from the Composting Association.
Briefly, what do you think the Government should be doing to encourage
and incentivise composting by the general population?
(Cllr Symonds) The Government can act in markets.
One of the problems is that there are not the markets to encourage
people. We have markets and five-year contracts for paper and
other things. We have had markets all the time, but a lot of authorities
use the excuse of not having markets as a reason not to do it.
They do not want to be stuck with a lot of compost. They want
to be able to get rid of it. The Government could stipulate a
recycled content for the products that come through, whatever
they are, and newsprint is practically the only one, and encourages
firms and pass legislation to say that goods must have a certain
recycled content or that compost must be used instead of peat.
I know there are problems with that. The Government can act and
provide markets perhaps with a tax on materials. These are ballpark
things but, when it comes down to it, this is much more difficult
than me just saying, "Put a tax on materials". If we
are going to encourage recycling, we have to do something at that
end to encourage people to recycle for the market, to actually
send the recycled goods through markets. There is something in
the Waste Strategy that says public bodies will recycle, or should
recycle. Most do not. It is not easy. Bath and North and East
Somerset passed a motion three or four years ago on recycled paper,
but it has not working because there is still the alternative
to buy ordinary goods. We have stopped that. The only things that
can be bought from the Council are recycled paper products. There
are no other supplies available for sale.
Mr Mitchell
242. I was wondering what started all this.
You have a commendable record at 17% recycled, including building
materials. Yours is the top recycler among the unitary authorities.
How did it happen? Is it that you have a particular bunch of enthusiasts
like Friends of the Earth, or is there a particularly pushy officer
who is convinced of the virtues, or is yours a wealthy council
that can experiment? How did it start in your case?
(Cllr Symonds) The turning point was appointing a
recycling officer. He has developed into one of the top recycling
officers in the country. He is now working for Avon Friends of
the Earth, so he is still in the area. That was the turning point,
the politicians saying yes to the manager who put that forward.
They said, "Yes, we will have a recycling officer".
He piloted many of the schemes. You do not have to go back to
the politicians to ask if you can do something and whether the
Government is going to provide the money for it. Politicians did
that and that was it. Friends of the Earth were already there
and they made the offer. Quite a few things came together at the
right time. We used to get Landfill Tax Credits, as they were
called, in those days. We were a district and so we collected.
Being a unitary council now, we can manage the collection and
disposal and that makes things much easier. The factors were:
the Landfill Tax Credits, the appointment of a recycling officer
and Friends of the Earth being in the area.
243. How would you encourage other local authorities
to go down the same path? What would your advice be on best practice
and how to achieve it?
(Cllr Symonds) First of all, be brave. People love
it. I talk about political will. As politicians, we need the support
of people. If you say, "We are going to build an incinerator
down the road", they are all against you, so why do it? You
can say, "We will start a recycling system". People
love recycling when they get to do it. The only criticism you
get of the recycling and collections really is, "Why can't
it include plastic or cardboard. Why can't you collect more?"
The materials are separated at the kerbside, so it is all clean.
In Bath and North East Somerset we have a reputation for having
really good paper going through the paper processors. That is
done simply by kerbside collection. Kirklees has a dirty MRF—materials
recycling facility. People separate the stuff into their green
boxes, which then goes into different sections on a truck. It
is bundled up and taken away. Cans and plastic go on to a materials
recycling facility and that is sorted magnetically, which takes
out the tin and leaves the aluminium. The bottles are sorted by
hand because of the types of plastic. I digress on that. Government
could help by telling producers only to use one or two types of
plastic. Mixed plastic is hopeless; it is not economic to recycle,
it is difficult to recycle, and we have not yet found anyone to
do it. PETS and one or two other types are all right, but there
are masses of types of plastic which cannot be recycled; they
have to go to landfill. If Government said, "You can only
use certain types", that would be fine and you could recycle
plastic a lot more easily. That is another action Government could
take. The material is sorted and it is all clean. That is the
only way to do it. I know a Bill is coming up on Friday, and it
is essential. Bath and North East Somerset is a rural and an urban
area. We have two market towns, Keynsham and Radstock, in addition
to the wonderful world heritage City of Bath. The rest is mostly
green belt and farming country. The percentage take-up in Bath
for recycling, that is people putting their box out at least once
a month, is 70% The figure is the same for the rural areas. We
have a figure of 70% right across, so it can be done. If it is
dealt with in the right way, people will do it. We have had recycling
advisers going round to areas where people were not recycling
very much to explain to these people. Some people go off, move
house, leave their box and some take the box with them, but that
means there is a box missing. Sometimes people do not really know
what to do. We try to tell people how to get a green box and things
like that. The recycling advisers have been a great success. Landfill
tax funding was obtained through the Recycling Consortium. There
are all these sources of funds and people who can help you to
get funds through the local authority. The local authority leads
with various partners. That is how15 March 2003 we do it.
Diana Organ
244. I am interested in your comment about Government
action and three types of plastic. I would love to see the Government
tell Proctor and Gamble and Coca-Cola that they can only use three
types of plastic in their packaging.
(Cllr Symonds) Maybe I think it is about time we did.
Can I come back to that? One of my criticisms of the Statutory
Unit Report is that there are all these mandatory targets for
local authorities, and quite right too, but where are the mandatory
targets for industry? No, it is all encouragement and voluntary
targets. That is not going to work unless it runs all the way
through. There is another way of doing it. I believe the way is
through Zero Waste; that means that people can reduce waste and
save money.
245. Could I go back to your composters? My
district council, on a much smaller scale than David Taylor's,
has been offering free composters. I think they have given out
18,000 in the last few months, which is good. Our previous witnesses
said they are not quite sure how successful composters are because
people might take one but when they get this soupy, hot mess,
they never use it again. We do not really know how many people
have one of these things in their back garden, which is either
empty or full of the children's garden tools. Could you tell us
a bit about the education that you try to put into place for people
who have taken a compostor? Have you done any monitoring of how
many people have taken one of these things because it seems a
good idea but now it is just used as a collecting bin?
(Cllr Symonds) We send out this leaflet with the bins.
It tells people how to do it. To be honest, it is dead simple.
You put in all the green waste but not cooked food. The Government
allows us to do that but not to do it centrally. They presumably
do not care about ordinary people composting in their back gardens
with contaminated lettuce leaves or whatever. You put the stuff
in, put the lid on and it works. The stuff just disappears. Composting
is magic because you put the quantities in the bin and they just
vanish, wonderful. It is easy. I have never had a problem with
it. I do nothing else to it.
246. Do you know how many people have taken
one but are not actively using it?
(Cllr Symonds) Some time ago we did a survey. We have
not monitored for some time. We need to do that. We estimated
the figure for home composting is 5% The Government does not allow
us to add that to our recycling targets. That is another thing
that Government could do. I think the Audit Commission actually
pointed this out to the Government some time ago. The most environmentally
friendly way of getting rid of your green waste is by home composting.
There is no incentive for authorities who like league tables and
percentages to ensure that they encourage home composting.
247. Your record is very good, and obviously
we would be interested to know how you achieved those sorts of
levels and whether other councils could follow suit. May I suggest
to you that possibly you have a community—although it is
not one community because it is Bath, Radstock and Keynsham—that
is, shall we say, quite well educated, middle class and those
people can see the virtue in this. They read the leaflet and they
have gardens and bigger kitchens because they have larger suburban
houses. To a certain extent, as well as the enthusiasm you have
from your recycling officer, it is to do with the individuals
in your community who can see the virtue in it and it is easier
for them, whereas if you were a local authority dealing with poorer
homes with smaller kitchens in houses of multiple occupancy, people
with no gardens, it might be a tougher job.
(Cllr Symonds) There are places that are almost entirely
like that in pockets in Bath and North Each Somerset and quite
a few in the centre of the city. Very few of those amazing eighteenth
century buildings are occupied by one family only. They are mostly
flats and houses in multiple occupation. They are occupied mainly
by students but also by families in flats. This does work. We
have a small basket that you can carry for people in flats. In
some places we have mini recycling centres outside the building
and people bring their bottles and cans down to those. One or
two wards are down at the bottom in the deprivation list. In fact,
recently Government gave us money to spend on some of those old
council estates. They must be pretty well down to receive this
regeneration money. I do not absolutely know where the low recycling
levels came from but I can make a pretty good guess that they
apply probably to some of those areas, but not only to those areas.
We sent in recycling advisers to talk to people and tell them
about this. I do not think people are that different. Yes, there
is 30% that never do it in Bath and North East Somerset. There
are ways of tackling that issue. Basically across the country,
once you explain it to people, and it is not rocket science, it
is not that difficult: you put newspapers here, bottles and cans
there. That is the basis of the recycling. Obviously there is
a lot more, as you can see from the leaflets. We do more than
ten or eleven things. People get into the habit of chucking everything
into a black bag and putting it outside. In Bath and North East
Somerset they put that outside the back door. We would come and
collect your black bag or bin from your back door, but we are
going to change that and soon it will be taken from the front
door. If they are in the habit of doing that, they can just as
easily get into the habit of putting stuff in a green box. I think
that is too pessimistic. There are areas where it will be much
more difficult but if you have a decent system and a decent education
and awareness campaign going, you can tell people how to do it
and point out the benefits. A lot of people think the environment
today is appalling. They read about problems and pollution and
they feel they can do their little bit. The big global issue is
difficult for many people to address. You are helping to save
the planet by putting something into a recycling bin. A lot of
people do it for just that reason.
248. You mention incentives for recycling. One
can see that the householder has a real gain-gain situation with
their own composting because they can put it back on their garden
and they gain by having the nutrients for the soil. Has the Council
thought about some incentives to expand the already high target
to those more resistant groups within your area, like more collections
or maybe a cut in council tax if you are a householder who separates
regularly? Have you thought about incentives yourself that you
can put in place for these tougher nuts to crack?
(Cllr Symonds) We have done that. We have these recycling
advisers, who have made quite a difference in certain areas. We
have mainly concentrated on providing the facility for people
to recycle when they want to do it. I hand you a list of the items
we recycle. There are more than ten now. We have concentrated
on that. Once we have done that, we will look at the other 30%
who are not recycling and either say that we will give them incentives
to recycle or use the stick of variable charging. Someone who
puts out ten black bags of rubbish pays exactly the same council
tax as someone who puts out only one bag. We pay by the amount
we use for electricity and gas and water in some cases. There
is no reason why we should not pay by the amount of waste that
we produce. It is not Government that changes industry, is it,
but the people? People will pressurise supermarkets and producers
who send out stuff like polystyrene that they cannot do anything
with. That would be one way of doing this. We have not decided
whether to do that. Some years ago, we did volunteer to pilot
some variable charging so that people could pay by the amount
of waste they produced. In fact, people do not produce it; the
goods they buy come with packaging.
249. You did not introduce the variable charging?
(Cllr Symonds) No, we did not. By law we could not.
A group of recycling officers through LARAC discussed that. Before
1997, the Government were looking at that. John Gummer was looking
at that but nothing happened. As far as I know, the law is still
in place but I think the Government are now going to change it
if it is approved in the report.
Paddy Tipping
250. May I pursue variable charging a bit more?
I think you are telling us that you are going to put the facilities
in place, then undertake an education programme, and eventually
we might move to variable charging. Is that the Council's position?
(Cllr Symonds) Yes.
251. What work have you done on variable charging?
If we ask that some of your officers send us your thinking on
that, would you be able to comply?
(Cllr Symonds) Probably we could but not through our
officers. It could be done certainly through Avon Friends of the
Earth and others. We have a Zero Waste consultant who is going
to help us to write a Zero Waste strategy. He has done a fair
amount of work on variable charging for the Government. There
is documentation around. This works in Canada. I have seen stuff
from Ontario where they have been doing it for years. First of
all, you would reduce the council tax by an overall amount and
have a long education programme because fly-tipping will happen,
but it is only a problem and not a reason to stop doing something
or not even to attempt it. Too often that is what we get. People
focus on the problems before they have actually done what they
want to do. That is bound to throw up problems. It is no good
focusing on the problems you are going to expect and not doing
something. You do it; you educate people as far as possible to
try and avoid those problems. If you hit problems, then you work
them out as you go along. There is no reason not to do it. Fly-tipping
is a problem but it is not an insurmountable one. We have not
done much on that but I think we will in the future because we
are nearly there by providing facilities to recycle almost everything
we can think of, apart from batteries because I do not think there
is a processor who deals with those in this country. There was
an Australian company in Avonmouth but I think they have closed
down. We are bit stuck on batteries.
252. You talked to us earlier on about all the
bidding you have done and the money you have received. Tell me
about the Council's own costs. What is the cost to you as a council
as a collection and disposal authority? What is in the budget
this year?
(Cllr Symonds) The budget is something like £8.5
million. At the moment, we send 70,000 tonnes to landfill, so
every year we have landfill tax for another 70,000 tonnes to find.
That will be £210,000 at that rate until two or three years
time when it goes up by £3 a year. We have quite an expensive
disposal system because we are still doing what the old Avon area
used to do and sending the stuff on the train. There is a difference
of £14 between our recycling and collection and disposal
costs. When you think about the sorting and manpower that is needed,
on the other hand it does create jobs. Recycling is bound to cost
more but the environmental costs are never taken into account.
There are environmental costs. Vast amounts of energy are needed
to bury materials and make the same goods from virgin materials,
vastly more than if you recycled the goods and made them into
goods again. Aluminium is the classic example. If you recycle
aluminium, the energy used is 20% of the cost of making aluminium
from new. That is a special case but basically that goes across
the board. If you are destroying materials rather than recycling
them, and it does not matter if you burn them and get energy back,
the energy you get back is vastly less than what is needed to
produce the materials you have already destroyed. To me, that
is a great financial and environmental argument for not going
back to using all that energy to produce materials that you have
either buried or burnt.
253. I am sure that is quite right, and I am
sure you share that with the residents and voters in your area,
but tell me about the cost. Landfill is going to go up, and I
think you told us earlier on that as landfill goes up, because
you are recycling, you are going to make a saving, did you not?
(Cllr Symonds) Yes.
254. In the mid term, though, there is a financial
gap there, is there not?
(Cllr Symonds) Yes, there is.
255. What would be the answer to that?
(Cllr Symonds) We either do that or we move money
in our financial plan. We are just actually looking at that. We
have just set out our priorities. With most of the money that
comes through, the Government has already predestined where it
is going to go—passport into education, social services—and
we know we would want to put money into those areas. Also what
is becoming more and more important for people are the environmental
issues of roads and transport, the roads are wearing, the pavements
and all the rest of it, waste and street cleansing. That is quite
a high priority for us. So we would have no problem going to the
electorate and saying, "Look, your council tax is going up
by something like ½% or ¼% to pay for the £250,000
a year we need to continue the green waste recycling." I
think that would find favour. If they do not know why the council
tax goes up, that is a problem, but if you actually say, "This
is why we're doing it, and you will get this, this and this for
the council tax rising by that amount," then I am pretty
sure that in our area the majority of people will be happy with
that. The other way is actually moving money around within the
financial plan that you have. That is difficult. There is no point
in setting priorities if you are in local government and then
not financing them, because you raise expectations, you give people
promises of "We want to be a cleaner and greener authority,
but we're not willing to put the money into it." That is
pathetic.
256. It is a matter of political priority?
(Cllr Symonds) Yes.
Chairman
257. Councillor Symonds, thank you very much
indeed. You have been extremely helpful to us and we shall watch
your progress with great enthusiasm. Meanwhile, I can sense that
there is some literature which is going to be left for us.
(Cllr Symonds) Yes, that is here. I brought it in
a bag, if you will indulge me as you did Councillor Twitchen.
There was a competition in a school for a slogan for a bag which
lasts rather than plastic bags. We want to discourage people using
plastic bags. The slogan this primary school child came up with
was "I may be an old bag, but I'm a bag for life".
Mr Mitchell
258. Just what my wife says!
(Cllr Symonds) We produce those. We are actually sending
those round at the moment. The main thrust of my submission was
that waste management has failed and we really need to be looking
at something else, like elimination strategy rather than management
strategy. That is only zero waste. That is a way of changing people's
attitude and changing the culture of them producing waste to not
producing waste.
Chairman: Thank you very much. If you leave
those on the edge of the table we shall make sure that they are
appropriately distributed. Thank you very much indeed.
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