Memorandum submitted by Friends of the
Earth
1. Friends of the Earth in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland is a member of Friends of the Earth International,
which has over 70 member groups across the World, the majority
of which are in developing countries. Our views are informed by
this perspective.
2. Friends of the Earth believes that the
driving force for change in UK waste management practices must
be to deliver significant improvements in resource use. Like other
developed countries, the UK consumes far too many resources. This
has an unacceptable environmental and social impact on developing
countries. Resource consumption in rich countries must be cut
by around 80-90% by 2050 if environmental limits are not to be
breached and if developing countries are to have access to adequate
resources to develop sustainably[1].
3. The recommendations Friends of the Earth
makes in this evidence are intended to drive improved resource
use in the UK.
ACTIONS REQUIRED
BY THE
EUROPEAN UNION
4. The European Union has a key role to
play in improving resource use and recycling. In the strategy
it is developing on resource use it should aspire to zero waste
and develop a programme to move towards it. This should include
legislation to ensure that products made and sold within the Union
are designed for durability, reuse and 100% recycling.
ACTIONS REQUIRED
BY NATIONAL
GOVERNMENTS
5. The Government should aspire to rapidly
move towards zero waste and develop a strategy to do so. It should
ban the building of large disposal technologies, such as incinerators,
which demand large quantities of waste. As recommended by the
Strategy Unit, it should consider banning the disposal of recyclable
materials to landfills or incinerators by 2006-07[2].
It should also amend planning guidance to ensure that waste treatment
plants are small-scale and adhere to the proximity principle.
6. The Government should set statutory national
and local recycling targets of 50% by 2010 and 75% by 2015. A
report on new and emerging technologies for the Strategy Unit
provides some evidence that these rates could be achieved[3],
as does research carried out for the Community Recycling Network[4].
7. The Government should consult on setting
a waste minimisation targets and a draft implementation strategy
that reduces waste arisings rather than simply slowing the growth
of waste arisings as suggested by the Strategy Unit in its report
Waste Not, Want Not.
8. The Government should support Joan Ruddock
MP's Private Members Bill on doorstep recycling.
9. The Government should introduce a range
of economic incentives to reduce resource use and increase waste
reuse, recycling and the development of markets for recycled materials.
The landfill tax should become a disposal tax (to include incineration)
and it should be raised to significantly increase the cost of
landfill and incineration. The proceeds from this should be used
to fund local authority recycling and composting services, as
well as work the Strategy Unit has recommended on waste minimisation.
Perverse subsidies to incineration and other disposal technologies
should be removed. Resource taxes, for example on virgin paper
or aluminium, should be introduced to reflect the environmental
and social damage caused by their extraction. Taxes to encourage
reuse of products should be introduced (eg deposit on beverage
containers, plastic bags tax), as should tax breaks to develop
markets for recycled materials.
ACTIONS REQUIRED
BY LOCAL
AUTHORITIES
10. Local authorities should produce a waste
strategy aspiring to zero waste. They should aim to recycle 50%
of municipal waste by 2010 and 75% by 2015. They should also aim
to remove all reusable, recyclable and compostable waste from
the waste stream by 2020.
11. Local authorities should promote and
support waste minimisation schemes (eg nappy washing services,
local refillable schemes, furniture reuse schemes, low packaging
shops and markets).
12. Local authorities should provide all
households with weekly doorstep collection of separated food waste
by 2006. By the same date, all households should also be offered
a subsidised or free composting bin for garden waste, or if they
prefer a regular free separate collection. This waste should be
composted or anaerobically digested locally.
13. Local authorities should provide all
households with doorstep recycling service for separated dry recyclables
by 2010 at the latest (with high interim targets, such as 80%
of households by 2006). Dry recyclable materials include: paper,
glass, cans, plastics, and batteries.
14. Local authorities should provide a free
service for the collection, reuse and recycling of large electrical
goods, furniture and other bulky wastes. Civic amenity sites should
be organised to ensure very high levels of reuse, recycling and
composting. Local authorities should also remove recyclable materials
from street waste.
15. Local authorities should be allowed
to provide householders with financial incentives, either rewards
or penalties, to participate in recycling schemes if participation
rates are too low to meet recycling targets. However these should
be designed not have a disproportionate impact on any particular
sectors of society (for example large households). They should
only be introduced when the doorstep recycling and composting
services have been in place for two years and extensive communication
and education programmes undertaken.
16. With regards to the limited amount of
waste remaining after an intensive waste minimisation, reuse and
recycling scheme, local authorities should rule out large and
inflexible technologies such as incineration. Instead, any remaining
recyclable waste should be removed (eg metals, plastics, some
paper). Secondly the small amount[5]
of waste remaining after this should be composted or anaerobically
digested and, unless sufficiently clean to be used as compost,
should be disposed of to landfill (as the disposal route with
lowest environmental impacts for this waste)[6].
These processes should occur in small localised treatment plants.
17. The recommendations outlined above would
significantly help the UK improve its resource efficiency, create
new jobs and industries in the UK and reduce pressures on developing
countries. They would also assist in the UK meeting its pledge
at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to maximise recycling[7].
Friends of the Earth
December 2002
1 For more on this see Friends of the Earth's publication
More from Less, at: http://www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/pubscat/general.htmlmore<mv3>-<mv-3>f Back
2
Recommendation 12 in the Strategy Unit report Waste Not, Want
not. Back
3
See scenarios 5 and 6, pages 86-91 in Delivering the Landfill
Directive: the role of new and emerging technologies, report for
the Strategy Unit, Dr Stuart R B McLanaghan, November 2002. Back
4
Maximising recycling; treated residuals, a report for the Community
Recycling Network by Eunomia Research and Consulting, September
2003. Back
5
Potentially as little as 15-25% of municipal waste at 2010-2015
and declining further over time. Back
6
Friends of the Earth has helped fund research into the options
for treating the waste remaining after intensive recycling and
composting (see http://www.crn.org.uk/gifs/finalresidualsreport.pdf).
It suggests that incineration and the disposal of untreated waste
in landfills are the worst environmental options. Of the other
options, Friends of the Earth opposes the burning of this waste
in cement kilns or power plants which only perform well in the
study because they are currently burning coal rather than gas
(and hence one dirty fuel is only being replaced by a less dirty
fuel). These plants should not be burning coal. With regards pyrolysis
and gasification the data is less clear. Friends of the Earth
will continue to oppose these technologies for treating this waste
stream until evidence is produced which shows that they are able
to operate to a standard which is better for climate change, human
toxicity and other environmental impacts than our stated preference.
This is likely to require the removal of these technologies from
the Renewables Obligation (where they risk displacing clean renewables
such as wind, solar and wave). Back
7
Paragraph 22 in the Report of the WSSD, available at:
http://ods-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/636/93/PDF/N0263693.pdf?OpenElement Back
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