Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-526)
Ms Jane Bickerstaffe, Mr Stephen Carter, Dr Robert
Chilton and Dr Forbes McDougall
4 MARCH 2008
Q520 Lord Lewis of Newnham: I am
sure that is right. That is certainly an effort that has come
out of the whole concept of recycling. If you look at the history
of recycling over the last 20 years, from being a complete no-no
to being now an acceptable part of society, I am sure that is
absolutely so. INCPEN suggested that the Government should re-establish
its National Household Waste Analysis Programme, which analysed
the composition of various household waste. Why was this programme
stopped, and how does the data collected by current sample surveys
compare to that taken by the old programme?
Ms Bickerstaffe: The National Household Waste
Analysis Programme operated from 1980 all the way through to the
early 1990s. It was a systematic analysis that a large selection
of local authorities did over different times of the year, because
waste is also seasonal. I do not know why it was stopped. The
Government at the time just decided that they no longer needed
it. However, it was giving us really good data about what people
actually throw away. It was a basis for being able to design good
recycling systems as well because, once you understand what is
in the waste stream, then you can manage it. There has never been
the equivalent sort of analysis of commercial and industrial waste
streams. Frankly, the data we have today has gone backwards from
those days. We still do not have good data on industrial and commercial
waste and we have less good data on household waste. We think
that it is really important, when waste is such a high-profile
political issue, that more resources are put into actually understanding
it.
Q521 Lord Haskel: Would eco-labels
work?
Dr Chilton: They will not do any harm but they
will not work alone. One of the problems when you get a product
now is absorbing all that information. It has to be simple; it
has to be absorbable. That is why I made the point earlier. It
would be better to reduce the window of environmental impact of
products so that when you go along you say, "All of that
range is not doing the environment serious harm; therefore I will
choose on the basis of other considerations".
Q522 Lord Lewis of Newnham: How about
the position that we are finding ourselves in now over landfill,
where biodegradable is becoming a feature that must be reduced
within your landfill site? How are we going to assess how much
biodegradable there is, unless we have the sort of surveys that
we have been talking about?
Ms Bickerstaffe: We do need much better data.
You are absolutely right. Hopefully that is something that the
Government will look at.
Q523 Lord Lewis of Newnham: How are
they going to do it? We are told it has to be 75 per cent of what
is being put in—when was it?—five or six years ago.
Ms Bickerstaffe: I do not know how it is being
measured but there are some formulae that have been put together,
and local authorities have been allocated targets to reduce the
amount of biodegradable. When you look at dustbin waste, household
waste, the majority of the biodegradable fraction is the kitchen
and garden waste and the newsprint. That is almost 60 per cent
of what is there. Most local authorities are putting in place
procedures for diverting those from landfill.
Q524 Lord Haskel: If eco-labelling
would make a contribution, is there a technical or regulatory
basis on which labelling would be fair and would be informative?
Dr McDougall: We would say that eco-labelling
could be useful, but we have to be very careful that it does not
become prohibitive with respect to innovation. If we say, for
example, phosphates should not be included in washing powders—and
the majority of washing powders in Europe now do not contain phosphates—can
people not just put "phosphate-free" and get an eco-label?
That is one issue. The second issue would be what if, five years
down the line, a washing powder is developed that uses half the
resources, half the energy to manufacturer, washes twice as well
at half the temperature, but contains a small amount of phosphate?
The innovation department, the R&D department, would not even
go down that route of investigating those chemicals or those formulae
if there was a restriction around what you can put on. From an
industry point of view, therefore, eco-labels can be useful, but
they have to be very carefully designed not to set a bar where
people will reach the criteria and then not be able to go any
further.
Q525 Lord Lewis of Newnham: Ought
we not to ask the question of why are phosphates banned?
Dr McDougall: Because of eutrophication of water.
Q526 Lord Lewis of Newnham: Utrification
is a minor factor, but human effluent is far greater in phosphate
than ever you will get from washing powders or things like that.
It is a minor contributory factor to it.
Dr McDougall: Yes, but I think that this was
driven from the Scandinavian countries chiefly.
Chairman: You were complaining about the lack
of evidence that you have, but you have certainly been extremely
frank and open with us this morning and we are very grateful.
If afterwards you think that there is anything you would like
to add, we would be very pleased to receive it. Equally, we will
reserve the right to come back to you if there is anything that,
on examination of the text, we think you could be a little more
explicit on or where perhaps you did not do yourself justice.
Thank you very much for coming this morning.
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