Memorandum submitted by the Community
Recycling Network
The CRN welcomes the opportunity to make a contribution
to the work of the committee. Though brevity was urged by the
committee, we regret that due to pressure of time, our submission
has to be very short, rather general in nature, and not as comprehensive
as we would have otherwise wished.
The Community Recycling Network represents over
two hundred community-based not-for-profit waste management organisations
and companies throughout the UK who deliver householder-separated
kerbside collections to around 1.6 million households. Domestic
waste is our main concern. Typically the CRN's members are also
engaged, not exhaustively, in the following:
— consultancy and advice;
— sorting, processing of waste and
secondary materials marketing;
— community and other composting;
— civic amenity site management;
— waste reduction, refill and reuse;
— computer, household appliance and
furniture refurbishment and resale;
— specialised event waste management;
— commercial recycling collections;
— household hazardous waste.
With some exceptions, waste is not an issue
widely understood by government at large, or by the media. Some
communities and local authorities however, are making good progress.
The CRN is of the view that recycling, the EU
Landfill and other directives on their way offer the UK an opportunity
at least as much as a problem. With the right encouragement from
government, a secondary materials industry could provide many
new and sustainable jobs. The Government needs to make some realisations
around this and find the political will to move toward it.
Though concerned with all forms of community-based
waste-management, the CRN historically has had a commitment to
pioneering kerbside collections wherein the householders separate
as fully as possible the waste materials for which they are responsible.
Our members run some of the most advanced schemes in the country,
in partnership with some of the more forward-looking local authorities.
Common arguments against recycling and the elimination
of waste are that there aren't sufficient markets and that the
public won't separate their waste. These are problems to which
solutions have been found outside the UK. Both markets and public
behaviour can be substantially improved by economic instruments.
For example, far more can be achieved through packaging compliance
and producer responsibility than has occurred up to now. There
are many other instruments mentioned in the Strategy Unit review
last year which might be brought to bear to finance recycling
and related activities and to reduce waste.
One simple instance which we offer as a litmus
test of political commitment and strategy quality is container
deposit legislation. Almost every country which has met with any
success in national recycling programmes has a reasonably comprehensive
system for ensuring that glass bottles are refilled. Bringing
back the bring-back in the UK would be an indication that the
Government, standing up to the glass industry, is serious about
waste reduction.
In the instance of markets, the advent of WRAP
has improved prospects for recycling substantially. However, it
cannot be expected to work miracles overnight. It must be given
more substantial support, financial and political, and time.
Kerbside recycling schemes, in conjunction with
bring sites and other provisions are capable of diverting substantially
higher percentages of domestic waste than currently occurs. The
community sector has not had the money to invest to push levels
up to establish the real art of the possible. There has been a
national failure here to experiment in this regard. This could
be easily remedied at modest cost. The UK needs to light some
higher and brighter beacons in recycling, and soon, such that
recycling rates of 60-80% are no longer just a foreign phenomenon.
In the view of the CRN, the UK's domestic waste
problem might best be characterised simply as a problem of mixed
materials. If used materials are separated at the point of discard,
then they constitute raw materials for another process, and at
least as much of an opportunity as a problem. Sorting is the key.
The business of materials recovery via householder-separation
is leading us to realise that what is required is a reverse distribution
structure. We are simply moving separated, secondary materials:
many of the planning nightmares around waste handling start to
evaporate as that realisation is made.
Waste, particularly domestic waste, is a symptom
of modernity and the consumer society. Post-war generations have
accepted this, unquestioned, and previous discourses of thrift
have fallen into disuse. Waste companies want waste; in tonnage,
or rather uplift terms, in the most obvious sense. Of greater
concern is that they also have a fundamental interest in its continued
existence as a social construct. The burgeoning waste industry
has invested in ways of getting waste, held to be a pariah commodity
occasioning a distress cost, out of sight and out of mind as efficiently
as possible. The public, local authorities and other institutions
have colluded by contracting them to do so. This is what must
change: waste itself must be differently conceptualised. Those
promoting the concept of Zero Waste have started down this path.
Their thinking should be examined carefully and applauded.
Local authorities are constantly calling for
more resources to make recycling happen. Through harnessing the
goodwill of the community, local authorities can achieve that
which is beyond their mechanical command. This is what the community
waste management sector aims to achieve. The reward to the community
for engaging with the process is the realisation of the wealth
that lies within their wastestreams. This wealth is most usually
realised in the form of jobs and perhaps small but measurable
enhancement to the local economy. Within the community, the householder
holds the key, and for several reasons:
— The Polluter Pays Principle: as the
originator of domestic waste, the householder should do their
utmost to action its reassignment as a resource. Sorting their
discards for kerbside collection at regular intervals is the very
least they can do.
— The Proximity Principle: since the
household is the point of discard, as much processing as possible
should be done on the spot. Again, the minimum is surely sorting
materials for collection.
— Recycling Economics: that the householder,
as willing volunteer, should pre-sort the waste must be axiomatic
in achieving good economy; this reduces later sorting costs.
— Quality of Material: as the industrialised
world collects more for recycling, there will inevitably be price
dips in the conventional material markets. The agency or country
which can demonstrate the highest quality of materials will be
that which retains its outlets and commands the best prices.
— Reaching Upwards: as we drive up
the waste hierarchy, reduction of packaging waste and other dry
recyclables will depend on the householder making purchasing and
other choices. Nothing will inform or galvanise these choices
as well as that awareness of packaging excesses which comes from
every one us having to sort our own waste weekly and to a high
standard.
Community Recycling Network
7 January 2003
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