| 1. | We endorse the Government's clear indication that it intends to include measures on waste among the 200 indicators being developed for the new local government performance framework. Given refuse collection's significance and high public profile, we recommend that such indicators be priorities for inclusion among the 35 'local improvement targets' identified for each authority. (Paragraph 20)
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| 2. | We endorse the autonomy of local authorities and recognise their expertise in implementing the best solutions for their own areas. The problems posed by waste collection and disposal are not, however, confined within local governmental boundaries, and require a national response driven by a clear vision energetically communicated from central Government. We recommend that the Government commission research to evaluate the best local collection, recycling, re-use and reduction schemes operated by local authorities and to develop a strategy to encourage their widespread adoption. (Paragraph 23)
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| 3. | Given the sensitivity of local opinion when it comes to changes in the ways refuse is collected, we recommend that the Government develop clear, straightforward best practice guidance on information provision to householders, using examples both of those local authorities that have introduced alternate weekly collection systems without prompting local concern and those who have, in the words of the Minister for Waste, "blundered into introducing alternate weekly collections without proper consultation, without proper planning". (Paragraph 31)
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| 4. | Up to one third of food purchased is disposed of without being eaten, perhaps the most shocking example of utter waste revealed during our inquiry. Householders are throwing away £400 a year. Councils are forced to waste their time and our money clearing up our leftovers, which are often the most problematic part of domestic waste. We recommend that Government set specific targets for food waste reduction and follow through on the Waste and Resources Action Programme's autumn food waste information campaign by promoting some simple measures households can take such as menu planning and improved storage, and by encouraging supermarkets and other retailers to help customers avoid waste by, for example, packaging perishable goods in sizes suitable for both single and family households. (Paragraph 35)
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| 5. | We recognise that research conducted to date into the health impacts of alternate weekly collection systems has found no evidence of adverse health impacts. Given the strength of public concern, however, allied with the wealth of anecdotal evidence about increased populations of flies, maggots, rats and other vermin associated with AWC systems, we strongly recommend that the Government commission further and more detailed research if the public is to be persuaded that there is no appreciable risk. (Paragraph 37)
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| 6. | If councils are to collect food and kitchen waste only once every two weeks as part of an AWC system, Government guidance must stress the absolute necessity to provide householders with sealable containers, such as hard-sided wheeled bins or boxes. (Paragraph 38)
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| 7. | Food waste represents nearly a fifth of the total household waste stream and is a particularly significant contributor to greenhouse gases when sent to landfill. We recommend that Government encourage more local authorities to adopt both separate food waste collection and at least weekly food waste collection. (Paragraph 39)
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| 8. | We suggest that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in preparing any further legislation, clarify the legal situation on additional charges for rubbish sacks and that the Department learn from the knowledge those authorities have developed of the practicality and efficacy of such systems. (Paragraph 41)
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| 9. | We note that the Government has set recycling performance targets for local authorities and that the Local Government Association argues for statutory performance targets. We endorse the Government's devolutionary intent to allow collection authorities as much freedom as possible to implement waste policy, but recommend that Government enter into discussion with local authorities about the creation of statutory targets. (Paragraph 45)
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| 10. | The number of fully trained and experienced local authority recycling officers remains low, restricting the spread and sophistication of schemes available. The continuation of statutory local authority recycling targets, rather than any shift towards merely residual waste targets, would help drive more officer training and development of greater expertise. (Paragraph 46)
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| 11. | For a variety of historical, geographical, economic and other reasons, practice on the collection of recyclable materials has grown in a piecemeal, haphazard fashion across England over the past decade and more, resulting in myriad local systems and some public confusion. A national recycling system is clearly not feasible in the short term, and the imposition of such a system from the centre would run counter to the Government's proper desire to let councils implement collection strategies suitable to their own areas and electorates. Nonetheless, we urge the Government to evaluate means of achieving more public understanding and co-operation by reducing random and unnecessary differences in practice across local authority boundaries. In particular, wider application of WRAP's national colour-coded recycling system for paper and card, glass, metals and food waste would give not just clarity and simplicity, but substantial long-term economies of scale. (Paragraph 48)
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| 12. | The adoption of alternate weekly collection systems in around 140 local authority areas has been accompanied in most of them by rapid and substantial increases in local recycling. Whether there is a direct causal link between those two facts is, however, unproven: AWC, where it has been introduced, is always part of a package of measures aimed at encouraging householders to sort more of their waste for recycling. AWC is clearly not appropriate to all areas, particularly highly urban areas characterised by much shared accommodation. Whether a weekly or alternate system is best for a particular area is a matter of local circumstance and a matter for local choice. (Paragraph 49)
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| 13. | The phrase 'alternate weekly collection' is bureaucratic and confusing, and a good example of how a potentially effective policy can be damaged by jargonistic terminology that is meaningless to most householders. Local councils would do well to find more straightforward descriptions of their own local arrangements. (Paragraph 50)
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| 14. | Our clear conclusion on collection methods across England is that there is no single system suitable to all authorities in all the range of local circumstances that pertain. (Paragraph 51)
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| 15. | We recommend that the Government work with the Waste and Resources Action Programme and local government to agree a core definition of what householders should expect from their refuse collection. This should include no complicated rules, rubbish collected when the council says it will be and schemes that suit every household from the largest rural home to the most crowded urban area. (Paragraph 52)
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| 16. | Several councils have spoken of a need to change the attitudes of residents so that they accept responsibility for the waste they produce rather than seeing it simply as something the council will come and clear up. If there is such a need, the change can only come from councils themselves, implying that they need to develop programmes to educate, inform and persuade the public of the need to cut household waste. They have argued that they are best placed to choose how, when and what to collect in their local areas; the clear corollary is that they share with central Government the responsibility for persuading their council tax payers how to minimise waste in the first place and how to influence retailers and others. (Paragraph 55)
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| 17. | Revenue-neutral financial incentive schemes aimed at improving local recycling will raise no money for councils and will therefore do nothing to help them manage their waste budgets in the face of rising costs. Indeed, since 'revenue-neutral' does not mean 'cost-neutral', and since any scheme introduced by a local authority will require substantial administration and enforcement costs, they may in practice, run directly counter to the intentions Sir Michael Lyons expressed in recommended local charging schemes, by adding a further cost to the growing burden local authorities must carry. (Paragraph 71)
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| 18. | It is hard to see how a resident faced with a 'financial incentive scheme' bill for even the indicative £30 contained in the Government's consultation will see it as anything other than a charge, or a tax. (Paragraph 72)
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| 19. | It is hard to see why any council will want to set up a complicated charging scheme that earns it no money and risks widespread public disapproval. (Paragraph 78)
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| 20. | We recommend that the Government clarify how financial incentive schemes for recycling will interact with council tax. We seek a detailed explanation of why the introduction of incentive schemes should not be accompanied by reductions in council tax. In particular, we are concerned by the suggestion that schemes "should not" require additional funding from council tax. Whether a local authority raises or reduces its council tax to fund schemes or incentives to local householders is a matter for individual councils. (Paragraph 79)
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| 21. | The Government recognises the risk that new financial incentive schemes to increase recycling and minimise waste may result in more fly-tipping or in people attempting to cut their bills by putting their rubbish in their neighbours' bins. We are not convinced that enough work has been done or guidance given to local authorities on how to prevent such risks from blighting areas and causing disputes. Nor are we convinced that local authorities already faced with increasing waste costs will be adequately funded to deal with increased administration, clear-up and prosecution costs. (Paragraph 89)
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| 22. | We welcome the Government's recognition that specific groups, such as large families or those on council tax benefit, should not be disadvantaged by the introduction of financial incentive schemes for increased recycling and waste reduction. (Paragraph 90)
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| 23. | The Government needs to clarify what will happen to householders who refuse to pay additional charges levied under any new financial incentive scheme. Given the small sums involved, prosecution seems an unlikely answer. Given the impact on other householders, councils cannot be allowed not to collect rubbish left out by non-payers. We are unconvinced that councils possess any adequate sanction against refusal to pay and question whether that might not substantially undermine schemes that local authorities may wish to introduce. (Paragraph 91)
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| 24. | The financial incentive schemes proposed by the Government offer individual householders very little reward for good behaviour and offer councils no immediate financial incentive. We cannot believe that giving some households £20 or £30 a year will remotely outweigh the negative psychological impact of making other households pay more for a service they believe they already pay for through taxation. Breaking the link with council tax and establishing refuse collection as a utility, like gas or sewerage, might have the radical impact the Government say they want. The half-hearted tilt in the direction of charging contained in their current proposals will not. (Paragraph 93)
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| 25. | We conclude that the introduction of a power allowing councils to form joint authorities where they wish to do so is welcome. (Paragraph 97)
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| 26. | The move towards greater joint working will be even more welcome if it brings about cost efficiencies, an increasing degree of shared practice and, possibly, some standardisation of approach to collection of different recycling streams and such things as a colour-coded system for different streams. (Paragraph 99)
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| 27. | The Government has made it clear that substantial infrastructure development will be necessary if waste diversion targets are to be met in the coming decades. In its coming implementation of the proposals in its planning White Paper, the Department for Communities and Local Government will need carefully to balance the desire for simplification in the obtaining of planning permission for major waste-related infrastructure projects with the objections of local communities to new facilities, including incinerators, desired by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to boost energy-from-waste production from its current 10 per cent to 25 per cent. (Paragraph 102)
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| 28. | Those authorities that decide to invest in producing more energy from waste will need to develop strategies to send only unrecyclable material for incineration and to use the flexibility in the Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme to trade incineration capacity with other authorities who may otherwise find it difficult to reduce their landfill to the extent required. (Paragraph 103)
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| 29. | We recommend that the Environment Agency prioritise the audit of London local authorities in its current waste disposal audit programme, because of the higher-than-average proportion of non-household waste collected and disposed of in the capital. We recommend that the Government ensure that reported reductions in municipal waste being sent from the capital to landfill sites are in fact occurring. If a loophole does exist in the current reporting requirement, it must be closed forthwith. (Paragraph 111)
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| 30. | With the bulk of England's waste far beyond the control of local councils, we recommend that the Government urgently investigate means of improving financial incentives to reduce the amount of commercial, industrial and construction waste that will otherwise continue to fill our rapidly diminishing landfill space. We recommend the rapid roll-out of a programme of affordable recycling services for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. (Paragraph 113)
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