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Waste pilots – draft guidance published

   

NEWS RELEASE

Ref: 193/08
Date: 19 June 2008

The Government is seeking views on draft guidance for local authorities to pilot schemes to cut household waste through financial incentives.

In response to requests from local authorities, Defra announced in November 2007 that it would allow up to five local authorities in England to pilot incentive schemes. Powers to enable the pilots to go ahead are currently being debated as part of the Climate Change Bill. The first pilots, which will be subject to approval by the Environment Secretary, could start from April 2009.

Waste incentive schemes can charge or reward people according to the amount of unrecycled waste a household produces. Schemes could be rebate-only, offering rewards to those producing the least waste, or could be charge-and-rebate based, levying charges on those producing the most waste and using these to reward households which generate the least. Schemes must be ‘revenue neutral’, so any money raised through charges is paid back as rewards. Local authorities would not be able to keep any of the revenue themselves.

Environment Minister Joan Ruddock will be writing to local authorities, inviting them to come forward with proposals for pilot schemes. The deadline will be 8 weeks after Royal Assent to the Climate Change Bill.

Joan Ruddock said:

“Evidence from countries where these schemes already operate is that charges and rebates of around £50 are enough to change behaviour and deliver real benefits for waste reduction.

“The shape of any pilot scheme will be for local authorities to determine - they know what is most likely to work for them in their own local circumstances. But there are some important principles to observe, for example the need to have a good recycling service in place already, and the need to take account of vulnerable households. This draft guidance will aim to support authorities through the process of delivering a pilot scheme, whatever their ideas may be.

“We want to share our thinking about how waste incentive schemes could work and hear the views of others. I encourage everyone with an interest to contribute to the informal consultation.  This is draft guidance at this stage and we will look to revise and improve it in the light of the comments we receive.”

There are six pieces of guidance, each one dealing with a different element of any scheme:

  • Application and designation
  • Technical issues
  • Finance
  • Coverage and disadvantaged groups
  • Unauthorised deposit or disposal (fly tipping prevention)
  • A good recycling service

Further information on monitoring and evaluating the pilots will be shared with stakeholders later in the year.

Joan Ruddock added:

“No decision has been made about rolling out powers more widely - we will make a decision only once we have high quality, robust data from the pilots.

“We hope that publishing draft guidance will assist both Parliament - in scrutinising the proposed legislation - and local authorities in developing pilot proposals.”

The deadline for comments on the guidance on a Good Recycling Service is 11 July; and for the rest of the guidance 25 July.

Comments and any queries should be sent to waste.incentives@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Updated versions of the guidance will be published once the Climate Change Bill has received Royal Assent.

Notes to editors

The draft guidance is available from waste.incentives@defra.gsi.gov.uk and on Defra’s website at
www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/strategy/incentives/

2.         A summary of responses to a 2007 consultation on waste incentives is at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/strategy/incentives/index.htm.

3.         Under section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, local authorities have a statutory duty to collect household waste free of charge (except in certain specific cases set out in Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992). Government proposals will lift this restriction on the pilot local authorities, allowing them to introduce non-revenue raising incentive schemes.

4.         In many countries householders pay according to how much waste they throw away and the evidence shows that this has led to higher levels of recycling and less waste being generated in the first place. For example:

  • In Maastricht, Netherlands, householders buy special sacks to dispose of their waste. Recycling has risen by 15 percentage points and the municipality's overall waste bill fell by 20%.
  • In Treviso, Italy, householders pay according to how often their non-recycled waste is collected. The scheme has helped achieve a 12% reduction in waste levels.
  • In Bjuv, Sweden, householders are billed according to the weight of their non-recycled waste. Waste levels fell by 19% and recycling rose by 49% in the first year of the scheme.

5.   The Government published its Waste Strategy 2007 in May. Key points of the strategy include:

  • More effective incentives for individuals and businesses to recycle waste, leading to at least 40 per cent of household waste recycled or composted by 2010, rising to 50 per cent by 2020. This is a significant increase on the targets in the previous waste strategy, published in 2000.
  • A greater responsibility on businesses for the environmental impact of their products and operations through, for example, a drive to minimise packaging and higher targets for recycling packaging.
  • A strong emphasis on waste prevention with householders reducing their waste (for example, through home composting and reducing food waste) and business helping consumers, for example, with less packaging. There will also be a new national target to help measure this – to reduce the amount of household waste not re-used, recycled or composted from 22.2 million tonnes in 2000 to 12.2 million tonnes by 2020 – a reduction of 45 per cent.
  • A challenge to see recycling extended from the home and office and taken into public areas like shopping malls, train stations and cinema multiplexes, so that it becomes a natural part of everyday life. Defra recently launched its Recycle on the Go initiative alongside the Royal Parks.
  • An increase in the landfill tax escalator by £8 per year from 2008 until at least 2010/11 – announced by the then-Chancellor Gordon Brown in March 2007. Partly as a result of this, business waste landfilled is expected to fall by 20 per cent by 2010 compared with 2004.

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Page last modified: 20 June 2008
Page published: 19 June 2008