Waste Strategy for England 2007 - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Contents


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:

    —  Food waste;

    —  Packaging waste;

    —  Waste collection systems; and

    —  Quality of materials.

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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