Scope
1.1. As our society has grown wealthier we have
become accustomed to using resources at an ever-increasing rate,
without regard for the quantity we waste. In recent years a depletion
of resources coupled with the environmental impacts of waste and
a decreasing capacity for landfill have prompted governments,
businesses and environmental groups to question the amount of
waste we generate and the way in which we deal with it. As a society
we now recognise that the rate at which we are consuming resources
and generating waste is not sustainable. However, most action
in the past has focused around the management of waste, with many
media campaigns focusing upon the re-use or recycling of waste
in the domestic environment. Although many recycling campaigns
have been relatively successful at reducing the amount of waste
sent to landfill, they do not tackle the root cause of the problem;
why is so much waste generated in the first place?
1.2. We have therefore set out to examine the
first level of the waste hierarchy, waste reduction, although
we recognise that this topic cannot be viewed in isolation. The
different levels of the waste hierarchy are interconnected, as
are the variety of waste streams, so we also discuss some of the
downstream difficulties which impact upon waste reduction efforts.
1.3. Emotive topics such as local rubbish collections
and the availability of public recycling facilities have already
received much scrutiny, but despite the large amount of attention
paid to it, domestic waste actually only accounts for around nine
per cent of the total waste stream in the United Kingdom (UK).
We have therefore focused our attention on the ways in which material
waste in the industrial, commercial and construction sectors could
be reduced and the impact of consumer choice in influencing these
sectors.
1.4. Waste involves a wide range of players,
including producers, retailers, consumers, local authorities and
the waste management industry. Throughout this inquiry we have
attempted to canvass the opinions of each of these. The general
impression we gathered from our witnesses is that businesses and
consumers are ready to be led in the area of waste reduction.
General awareness of waste and its implications is now high, but
knowledge of the practical actions which need to be taken is still
lacking. A strong lead from Government is required to tackle this
issue and they have taken some positive, if tentative, steps in
the right direction. However, a real focus on waste reduction,
as opposed to management, is still lacking and there is an urgent
need for the Government to send strong signals to industry to
demonstrate that this is a subject worthy of attention.
Acknowledgements
1.5. The membership of the Sub-Committee is set
out in Appendix 1 and the witnesses who provided us with valuable
written and oral evidence are listed in Appendix 2. The Call for
Evidence originally distributed for the inquiry is included in
Appendix 3. In November 2007 we held a seminar at the Royal Academy
of Engineering, to which a number of academics and industry representatives
contributed and a note of this seminar can be found in Appendix
4. During our inquiry we undertook visits to two companies within
the UK, Xerox and Martin-Baker, and a note of these visits can
be found in Appendix 5. Appendix 6 contains a note from our trip
to Belgium where we spoke to other companies, Niko, Delhaize and
Toyota; as well as the Flanders waste authority, OVAM, the trade
organisation, Orgalime, and the Environment Directorate-General
of the European Commission. We would like to thank very warmly
all these people who have assisted us in our work.
1.6. At the beginning of 2008 the Lord Speaker's
office ran a competition, in conjunction with the Hansard Society,
which invited school children to submit their thoughts about waste
and the environment. In June the Sub-Committee met the winners
of the competition who presented their entries and discussed their
ideas for reducing waste. We would like to thank all those children
who provided such innovative and thought-provoking presentations
and whose comments provided a useful insight into the views of
the younger generation.
1.7. We would also like to express our gratitude
to our Specialist Adviser, Professor Stephen Evans, whose
expertise and guidance has been invaluable throughout the inquiry.
However, we stress that the conclusions we draw and recommendations
we make are ours alone.
