Supplementary memorandum submitted by
WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) (Waste 50a)
INTRODUCTION
1. WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action
Programme) is a-not-for profit UK company providing recycling
and resource efficiency programmes for Defra, the Scottish Government,
the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
The organisation was formed in 2000 to implement a number of the
actions set out in the Government White Paper Waste Strategy 2000.
2. WRAP's mission is to help individuals, businesses
and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making
better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.
3. Our recently published Impact Review for 2006-08
reported on our work over the past two years. Our main achievements
include:
— 4.8 million tonnes of waste diverted
from landfill each year;
— 2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases
saved (measured as CO2 equivalent);
— 3.9 million more people describing
themselves as "committed recyclers"; and
— a 10% growth in the recycling sector.
4. It is also worth recording that since
WRAP started in 2001, we have supported new infrastructure capable,
over its operational life, of recycling and reprocessing more
than 111 million tonnes of waste. This has led to the saving of
15.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (CO2 equivalent).
5. Given the subject of the inquiry, all
of the material below relates to our activities in England only,
unless otherwise stated.
6. This memorandum supplements our original
memorandum, submitted to the Committee on 30 November 2007.[5]
We have taken the opportunity here to bring the Committee up to
date with developments over the last 10 months, including the
publication of our fourth Business Plan, and the finalisation
of our budget for 2008-09.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
7. Many of WRAP's programmes will help the
Government to implement the policies set out in Waste Strategy
for England 2007. Details are set out below. We look forward to
working with Defra and other stakeholders to help implement the
policies and measures set out in the Waste Strategy.
8. Since our November 2007 memorandum, we have
finalised our new Business Plan and our budget for 2008-09, both
issues that were unresolved at that time. Details are given below,
in paragraphs 15 to 18.
9. The five other main issues discussed
below are as follows:
— The value of a more holistic approach
across waste streams (para 12);
— The value of an action plan to assist
implementation (para 13);
— The importance of improving the consistency
of local authority waste collection schemes (para 14);
— The need to continue work on consumer
packaging (para 14); and
— The importance of action on food
waste (paras 21, 32-33).
GENERAL POINTS
10. The Committee has highlighted nine areas
of particular interest, and this supplementary memorandum comments
on each of them below. However, before turning to those issues,
we have made some more general points.
11. We would like to start by saying that we
would commend Defra's Waste Strategy for England 2007, as being
the most comprehensive approach to the issues that the Government
has ever produced. There are many positive aspects to the Strategy,
and it provides an excellent basis for action.
12. Nonetheless, we feel that the Strategy
could benefit from a more holistic approach to the various waste
streams that arise in England. It correctly identifies that only
9% of England's waste arisings come from households—compared
to 24% from commercial and industrial sources, and 32% from the
construction and demolition sector. Yet much of the focus of the
Strategy continues to be on household waste. We do, however, recognise
that much of the rationale behind the focus on household (municipal)
waste lies with EU legislation, and the Landfill Directive in
particular.
13. As one of the major delivery bodies
involved in putting the Strategy into practice, we would welcome
a clear action plan, showing who is responsible for implementing
each part of the Strategy. This would help WRAP to develop a better
understanding of the overall context within which we are working.
14. The Committee has invited views from
stakeholders on the priorities for future action. We would suggest
four:
— the need to develop a holistic view
across all sectors and waste streams;
— food waste—WRAP's work has
highlighted the huge scale of the problem, and started to address
solutions, but this is an area where additional action could reap
great rewards, diverting waste from landfill, reducing carbon
emissions and saving money;
— the need to improve the consistency
of local authority waste collection schemes, over time, so that
householders can expect a certain, minimum level of service (in
terms of which waste streams are collected) regardless of where
they live in England; and
— consumer packaging—giving product
designers and retailers increased incentives to develop packaging
solutions that continue to protect the product, but at lower weight,
with lower carbon impact, using more recycled material in their
production, and which are themselves easier to recycle (eg by
using only the most commonly used plastic polymer types).
WRAP Business Plan and Budget for 2008-09
15. At the time of writing our original
memorandum, we had not finalised our Fourth Business Plan, and
were in discussions with Defra over our budget for 2008-09. Both
of these issues have now been resolved.
16. Defra provided us with a budget for 2008-09
of £43.2 million. Although this represented a reduction of
30% in our budget for activity in England, when our increased
funding from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is taken into
account, WRAP's overall UK budget for 2008-09 is £62 million.
With this level of resources, WRAP has been able to bring forward
a substantial programme of activities for the coming three years.
17. This programme of activities is set
out in our Fourth Business Plan, launched earlier this year, and
covering the period April 2008 to March 2011. This Plan focuses
on three key targets:
— To divert 8 million tonnes of waste
from landfill;
— To save 5 million tonnes of greenhouse
gases (measured as CO2 equivalent); and
— To generate £1.1 billion of
economic benefits for the UK.
18. The Plan is designed on a holistic basis,
looking at all aspects of the resource efficiency loop. However,
it also indicates our intention to prioritise four particular
areas of work:
— Waste collection systems; and
COMMENTS ON
THE COMMITTEE'S
NINE HIGHLIGHTED
AREAS
19. The paragraphs below give our updated
views on the nine issues highlighted in the inquiry's terms of
reference. Where we have nothing to add to what was said in our
original memorandum of November 2007, we have indicated this.
How policies proposed by the Waste Strategy will
be implemented and the roles of those responsible for the production
and disposal of different classes of waste—including industrial,
business and household waste. Localisation as opposed to centralisation
of waste management
20. WRAP continues to have an important role
to play in the implementation of Waste Strategy for England 2007
(WS07). Under our new Business Plan, we are running programmes
to develop markets for four of the seven "priority materials"
identified by Defra in the Strategy—plastics, glass, food
& garden wastes, and wood. We are working directly with all
three of the "priority sectors" that the Strategy identifies—the
retail, construction, and food & drink sectors. In addition,
we have a large waste minimisation programme that is already addressing
several of the issues raised in the Strategy regarding minimisation,
and also recently highlighted by the House of Lords Science and
Technology Select Committee's inquiry on waste reduction.
21. WS07 commits the Government to continue work
on changing the behaviour of consumers and householders. WRAP
continues to run the Recycle Now national consumer campaign, which
aims to persuade householders to change their behaviour, and to
recycle more things, more often. However, we have more recently
also introduced a new consumer-facing campaign dealing with food
waste—Love Food Hate Waste. Early results from this campaign
are encouraging, with 1.5 million households saying that they
are now committed to reducing their food waste.
The role for, and implementation of, regulations,
and their enforcement
22. Nothing to add to 30 November 2007 memorandum.
The classification of waste
23. Since November 2007, there has been significant
progress on the joint WRAP and Environment Agency project to develop
quality protocols for a number of discrete waste streams. This
has included consultation on quality protocols for waste flat
glass, vegetable oil-derived biodiesel, anaerobic digestate, pulverised
fuel ash and furnace bottom ash.
24. Work is ongoing, but we are confident that
the quality protocols project is on track, and will lead to substantial
benefits to the businesses involved, and to the environment, by
taking materials that have until now often ended up in landfill,
and finding productive alternate uses for them as valuable resources.
The proposals for financial incentives to increase
household waste prevention and recycling
25. Nothing to add to 30 November 2007 memorandum.[6]
The role of composting
26. Two WRAP programmes are relevant to this
question: our home composting programme, and our market development
programme for organic waste.
HOME COMPOSTING
27. Our home composting programme is continuing
this year, but with a significantly reduced level of subsidy offered
to our partner authorities, as a result of our budgetary position.
Although this means that that the prices we are now charging partners
for bins and accessories has increased, home composting remains
very good value for money as a means of diverting biodegradable
waste from landfill. In addition, we continue to provide the central
infrastructure and support that has been valued by partner authorities
in the past.
MARKET DEVELOPMENT
PROGRAMME FOR
ORGANIC WASTE
28. Our recent Impacts Review confirms that,
over the last two years, WRAP has supported the development of
an additional 470,000 tonnes of composting capacity in the UK.
In addition, over that period we have launched 24 trailblazer
projects to demonstrate the benefits of using waste-derived compost
in brownfield redevelopment projects, putting more than 100,000
tonnes of such quality compost to good use.
The Government's approach to waste minimisation,
for example consideration of responsible packaging, including
examination of the different materials used and the potential
for reusable packaging and return schemes
29. WRAP's current waste minimisation programme
covers two main areas: packaging and food waste.
PACKAGING
30. A recent highlight for us has been the
achievement of our first target under the Courtauld Commitment:
to stop the growth of packaging waste arisings. We were pleased
to achieve this target (representing a cut in packaging of 82,000
tonnes a year) against a background of retail sales growth, and
the view in some quarters that packaging could not be reduced
significantly without increasing product damage.
31. WRAP and the grocery sector are now discussing
possible future action on food and packaging waste, building on
the success of the Courtauld Commitment to date, and looking to
extend it beyond 2010. The issues we will be considering include:
— how the carbon impacts of packaging
might be measured;
— extending the objectives to cover
food waste and packaging at back of store and in the grocery supply
chain; and
— how to encourage increases in the
amount of recycled content in packaging, and making the packaging
itself easier to recycle.
FOOD WASTE
32. At this time of increased pressure on
household budgets, we have also worked hard to ensure that consumers
are aware of the financial savings to be made through reducing
food waste, given that it currently costs the UK consumer £10
billion a year (or £610 a year for the average family).
33. Early results from our Love Food Hate Waste
campaign, mentioned earlier, are very encouraging. The campaign
has helped to increase significantly both consumer awareness of
the scale of the food waste problem (that we produce 6.7 million
tonnes of it each year, representing one third of all the food
we buy) and also of the solutions, with 1.5 million households
now committed to reducing their food waste. As a result, the programme
has so far saved 110,000 tonnes of food waste from being sent
to landfill.
The potential for the proposals in the Waste
Strategy to tackle the UK's contribution to climate change, in
particular through the reduction of methane emissions from landfill
34. In our current Business Plan, covering
the period from 2008 to 2011, WRAP intends to deliver 5 million
tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions savings (measured as CO2 equivalent).
This represents over half of the savings discussed in Waste Strategy
2007, and shows our commitment to maximising the contribution
of resource efficiency to meeting our climate change goals.
The promotion of anaerobic digestion for agricultural
and food waste
35. We have recently published a report
showing the results of the trials we ran with 19 local authorities
across England to collect household food waste separately, and
take it to anaerobic digesters (AD) or in-vessel composting sites.
This report showed that 4,272 tonnes of food waste were diverted
from landfill, preventing the release of 1,967 tonnes of CO2.
In the majority of areas, more than 70% of residents agreed to
separate their food waste for composting. On the basis of these
encouraging results, we believe that if consumers are given the
right tools and are provided with a good service, they will participate
in such initiatives.
36. One of the current obstacles to AD is that
the digestate byproduct, which can be put on soil as a conditioner,
is subject to waste regulation. This can limit the uses to which
it can be put. As mentioned above, we have recently consulted
on a Waste Protocol to define when the digestate is fully recovered,
and ceases to be a waste. Such digestate would fall outside of
waste regulation, widening the end-market opportunities. Stakeholder
reaction to the consultation has been largely positive, and we
look forward to developing the final protocol.
The adequacy of the existing infrastructure, such
as energy from waste facilities with heat recovery; the UK's capacity
to process materials collected for recycling; and the potential
for Government action to encourage the most efficient novel technologies
37. As mentioned in the introduction, we
have calculated that, between WRAP's creation in 2001 and March
2008, we have supported new infrastructure capable, over its operational
life, of recycling and reprocessing more than 111 million tonnes
of waste. This has led to the saving of 15.7 million tonnes of
greenhouse gases (CO2 equivalent).
38. We have also recorded above that, over the
last two years, we met our target to help the UK recycling sector
to grow by 10% (twice the rate of GDP).
39. This is not to say that there is not
more to be done—clearly there is. However, we believe it
is important to put on record the significant progress that has
been made over recent years.
Dr Liz Goodwin
Chief Executive
WRAP
October 2008
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