Memorandum by the Local Authority Recycling
Advisory Committee (LARAC) (RC 32)
LARAC is an association of well over 400 local
authorities across England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland
whose waste management and recycling professionals' co-ordinate
and operate waste management services. Membership is drawn from
all types of authority including statutory Waste Collection (WCA),
Waste Disposal (WDA) and Unitary.
Landfill for the majority of the 20th Century
formed the principle means of disposal for the UK,s waste. In
1939 it accounted for two thirds of disposal in both urban and
rural areas. This disposal route has therefore had a significant
influence on the refuse collection regime in the UK today.
Up until the 1970,s collection and disposal
had been undertaken by fragmented small scale local government
operations outside the major cities. But it was the 1972 Local
Government Act that split collection and disposal requiring the
newly formed county waste disposal authorities to prepare five
to ten year Waste Disposal Plans which gave waste a strategically
managed operation that combined with the 1974 Control of Pollution
Act to deliver large scale efficient disposal operations with
a reduced environmental impact.
It is the process of feeding this disposal operation
that formed the backbone of the UK,s refuse collection operation.
Increasing mechanisation, the introduction of wheeled bins to
address health and safety concerns (arising from a growing waste
stream) and the compulsive competitive tendering of refuse collection
operations in the 1980's and 90's that led to refuse collection
operations reaching efficiency levels comparable to the disposal
operation.
From the public's perspective waste disappeared
out of sight once a week required little effort and cost relatively
little compared to other public services.
Throughout the last 100 years the composition
of waste has changed dramatically and the 1956 Clean Air Act had
one of the most significant impacts as over the next 40 years
smoke control areas made the term dustmen and dustbin obsolescent
from a practical perspective. As societies wealth increased and
mechanisation encouraged/made possible the collection of greater
volumes of waste it became increasingly apparent that society
was throwing away significant resources and the recycling/salvage
operations that had declined after the second world war could
be reinvigorated.
Recycling however was generally undertaken on
a cost benefit basis and the 1990 Government White paper "This
Common Inheritance" set only an aspirational recycling
target of 25% by 2000 a formula repeated in 1996 waste strategy
"Making Waste Work". It was therefore not until
under the 1999 Local Government Act that statutory recycling targets
were introduced and it was at this point refuse collections began
to change on a wider scale.
With the advent of statutory recycling targets
and more recently the local authority LATs (Landfill Allowance
Trading Scheme) targets set under the Waste Emissions Trading
Act created for the first time a command push of waste resources
into the economy.
This command push has also been accompanied
by a greater demand pull in the broader economy influenced in
recent years by higher energy costs, environmental awareness and
other environmental legislation creating obligations on business
ie Packaging regulations, Carbon trading.
It is therefore into the context of the historical
services for which infrastructure and investment is well developed
that these new drivers have been thrust. However the cost drivers
for each are diametrically opposed with the push costs reduced
as waste is increasingly mixed and the pull costs reducing as
cleaner segregation of individual resource is achieved.
The interplay between the push and pull of the
various drivers manifests itself broadly in two key respects in
local authority waste collection services. How much monetary resource
is the authority prepared to commit to the service and how much
responsibility is the authority politically prepared to place
upon householders. As costs and penalties have been rising exponentially
authorities have been increasingly willing to give householders
greater responsibility for their waste.
Practically this means, as waste is not a homogeneous
resource it needs separating to be suitable for its end use with
the exception of landfill and conventional energy from waste.
Authorities have the choice of paying for technological investment
in post collection segregation of unsegregated/partially segregated
waste or householders separate significant or valuable waste streams
prior to collection and additional collection infrastructure is
invested in and/or collection frequencies methodologies are changed.
These two options inevitably lead to operations
that have different logistical efficiencies and scales both in
comparison with each other and the traditional landfill collections.
The collection methods by their very nature also have different
outputs and therefore impact on the treatment technologies/disposal
investments made by disposal authorities. All these variables
inevitably producing spatially different footprints that do not
follow authority's geographical boundaries.
As can be seen whilst waste collection arrangements
operate in isolation of disposal/recycling infrastructure collection
methodology wholly determines the supply chain costs, environmental
impact and the impact/influence on householders.
As reported in the Kelly report for the OGC
collection infrastructure capital investment is for a period in
the order of five years this is a significantly shorter time span
than is required for disposal/recycling capital investment which
is in the order of 15-30 years. So as public sector capital investment
in recycling and disposal infrastructure accelerates in the next
five years environmental impacts and collections methodologies
will become locked in unless significant further capital investments
are made reducing the efficiencies of initial investments.
In summary refuse collection and disposal methodology
historically driven by efficiency and public health is now subject
to two significant additional drivers which offer a variety of
solutions the interplay between which have significant implications
on the whole supply chain and should not be considered in isolation
and supports the current drive to closer integrated working between
disposal and collection authorities.
However the lack of public debate and understanding
at a national level as to the significant financial, environmental
and behavioural impacts of the decision making processes and the
fitness for purpose of existing structures has manifested itself
in the national press in recent weeks in the campaign for weekly
collections. The lack of depth to the debate was no greater personified
than by the Prime Ministers comments about being a traditionalist
when it comes to waste and a preference for weekly collections.
This submission has deliberately focused on
the broad issues that need to be considered when examining refuse
collection methodology as they are mostly overlooked in the examination
of the detail and current political decision making structures
are having difficulty reconciling them. Finally that LARAC supports
the freedom for individual authorities to determine the optimum
solutions for refuse collection for their communities whilst promoting
collaborative working within the local authority community.
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