Examination of Witnesses (Questions 88
- 99)
MONDAY 21 MAY 2007
MR JOHN
DUFFY AND
MR PETE
DAW
Q88 Chair: Could I ask you to introduce
yourselves, please?
Mr Duffy: I am John Duffy. I am
Director of Environmental Policy for the Mayor.
Mr Daw: I am Peter Daw and I work
as Principal Policy Officer in the Waste Strategy Team for the
Greater London Authority.
Q89 Chair: As you know we want to
explore one quite narrow topic with you which is the issue that
the Mayor has been arguing with the ministers in Defra where he
is essentially saying that London boroughs are achieving landfill
reductions on paper but not in reality by the diversion of commercial
waste to other sources. Can you just briefly set out your evidence
for that assertion?
Mr Duffy: It is non-household
waste in London; municipal waste is 21% which is roughly a quarter
of the four million tonnes that are going out of London. This
is higher than the rest of the country. At present we just recycle
9% of that compared to 30% nationally.
Q90 Chair: When you say it is higher
than the rest of the country, what exactly is higher?
Mr Duffy: The proportion of municipal
waste is higher.
Q91 Chair: Which is commercial?
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Mr Daw: It is 10% in the rest
of the country and 20% in London.
Mr Duffy: As you know the purpose
of the Landfill Directive is to reduce the amount of biodegradable
waste which is sent to landfill but there are loopholes we believe
that are being exploited. The waste continues to go to the landfill
but it is not recorded as municipal waste, it is going through
the private sector. We are concerned that due to slow progress
in developing infrastructure in London and as the LATS targets
get harder, the temptation will be to divert more of this waste
through the private sector. The non-municipal sector—the
private sector—do not have the same drivers to reduce landfill
so that is where we come from. If you want to know how I think
the system is being exploited, a number of boroughs—Wandsworth,
Kingston and Brent—have sold off their trade waste portfolios
and other boroughs are pricing themselves out of the commercial
waste field. Some of them are just not being aggressive enough
on their sales so what we are seeing is a drop in that amount
of waste. That is not illegal in itself but the idea is that if
you sell it you should still declare this as waste and it should
be reported to the local authorities or to government.
Q92 Chair: Are you saying those three
boroughs have sold off their commercial waste but not declared
it?
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Q93 Chair: How do you know they have
done it?
Mr Daw: In our submission we have
provided some evidence of authorities where the amount of collected
non-household waste has dramatically reduced from the period 2000
to 2005-06. In terms of the country as a whole I would point out
that the non-household municipal waste stream in England excluding
London has reduced from the year before this scheme started from
2.8 million tonnes to 2.4 million tonnes which is a drop of about
17%. In London that figure has dropped from just over a million
tonnes to 886,000 tonnes, again a drop of 17%. Household waste
over that same period—the period before the LATS scheme
started and the first year of LATS—has actually decreased
very slightly in England whereas in London it has increased slightly.
Given that trade waste largely reflects what the economy is doing,
it seems strange that there is almost a 20% drop in that waste
stream both in England and also in London.
Mr Duffy: Traditionally if you
look at the way the economy was rising, waste also rose and dipped
and they shadowed each other to a degree. Now with this 17% drop
in one year either something is very wrong with the economy or
something else is going on and that is the real issue. A 17% drop
in economic terms would be a major depression going on out there.
We think that that is not the case; we think the economy is doing
reasonably well and therefore these figures are being changed.
Q94 Chair: Just so that we get this
clear and using the figures just for Wandsworth to simplify it
down, it was roughly 32,614 non-household waste in 2000-01 down
to 2,804 in 2005-06. Is that from public figures?
Mr Daw: Those figures are taken
from Western Riverside's Best Value Performance Plan 2006-07,
so those are public figures.
Q95 Chair: You are saying that the
authority has not specifically informed government that that drop
is because they have sold off their commercial waste?
Mr Daw: Under the rules of the
scheme as set out by government that waste should still be reported
even if it is no longer collected on behalf of the authority.
I think what we are saying is that there is a dramatic drop and
we are not really convinced that is being investigated fully by
either Defra or the Environment Agency.
Q96 Mr Betts: What is the definition
of waste that should be reported in these circumstances, because
some authorities traditionally had a mixed collection where the
authorities did some and private commercial operators did the
other. Now if it is only that traditionally done by the authority
that should be reported how do you determine which bit it is?
Mr Duffy: Some of them are collected
separately. In the case of Wandsworth, for instance, they collected
it separately and sold the whole system off separately. There
are some boroughs that collected the same and they make an estimate
on how much that is. The issue is whether new contracts are being
signed up? We have doubts that that is the case. It will become
clear if you look at the statistics of all the boroughs. Like
I said, a 17% drop in a year is quite high.
Q97 Mr Betts: How is it defined what
should be reported? Clearly if the local authority collects it
and disposes of it that should be reported. If the local authority
stops collecting it how should it be determined which bit of what
they stop collecting they should report as really being stuff
they would have collected otherwise?
Mr Daw: This was an issue that
was flagged up with Defra when they were consulting on the scheme
way back in 2004 and Defra actually published some guidance because
local authorities were saying, "Isn't there an incentive,
because of the costs of the LATS scheme which are not on the private
sector, our costs are going to go up and our prices will go up?"
Equally, if we want to avoid LATS fines one way of doing that
might be to let that waste go to the commercial sector. The Government's
own guidance states a waste collection authority cannot evade
its duty under the 1990 Environmental Protection Act which is
to collect waste where requested to do so or make arrangements
by selling off its existing collection services. Selling off an
existing service is in substance no different from the waste collection
authority arranging for the commercial waste to be collected by
a private contractor. Thus, for the same reasons, the waste formerly
collected by the authority would remain under its control and
would constitute municipal waste." What that is trying to
say basically is that if you sell off your commercial waste you
must still report it under the rules of the scheme.
Q98 Chair: If a borough had sold
off its commercial waste and then did not declare it, does that
mean it has an awful lot of slack for domestic waste to landfill
in that it will have a target which is now incredibly easy to
stick to?
Mr Duffy: Yes.
Chair: So that is the incentive
for doing it.
Q99 Anne Main: There is a huge carrot
for doing it really in terms of keeping their figures down.
Mr Daw: I think given that government
guidance on it, it would suggest when they consulted it was raised
by many local authorities and again the figures from the year
before the scheme started and the first year of the scheme suggest
there is a very large and unusual drop in commercial waste collected
by local authorities.
Mr Duffy: Some of these are legitimate
to do. A lot of you come from a local government background and
I think the issue to get your costs down is a position they take,
but I have to say that the Mayor's view is that we are supposed
to be diverting waste from the home counties, not sending it to
the private sector. We are worried about the figures that are
being produced that actually say that we are diverting waste and
we are not. We are recycling some because recycling has gone partly
in London but a lot of this waste is still in the stream and so
we want that clarified. In Wandsworth's case we think that may
be just wrong, and maybe in Brent and Kingston. Other people have
just priced themselves out of the market. That creates a gap and,
like I say, it is the way local authorities have to look at their
books but a 17% drop in London in a year is quite outstanding.
If you had that sort of drop in the commercial sector generally
it would be recession time. Clearly that waste has not gone and
I think it is still going to landfill; it is just not going through
the books of the local authorities.
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