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% 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% 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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