Contact: Ian Avery, ext 6264 email: [email protected]

1. Summary

1.1 This report summarises key proposals in the current Government consultation about the review of England's waste strategy and comments on how they accord with Hampshire's aspirations as expressed in recent stakeholder engagement and emerging policy documents. Officers are formulating a detailed response to the consultation and the Committee is invited to contribute to this process by considering the issues raised.

2. Corporate Strategy

2.1 This report supports Aims 2, 3 and 5 (Stewardship of the Environment, Achieving Economic Prosperity and Improving Services) of the Corporate Strategy by reducing the impact of waste on the environment, creating opportunities to use waste as a resource and achieving efficiencies in the provision of waste services.

3. Introduction

3.1 The Government is reviewing the current waste strategy for England, Waste Strategy 2000, with the aim of building on progress that has been made over the past five years. A consultation on the review has been issued with a view to publishing an updated strategy later this year. A copy of the full consultation document is available at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/wastestratreview/index.htm. The consultation is summarised below.

4. Review of Current National Waste Strategy

4.1 The overall aim of the current national strategy is to reduce the growing volumes of waste and bury less of it in landfill sites by making use of the resources it contains through reuse, recycling and energy recovery. The consultation states that this aim is still valid and notes that some significant steps have been made towards it since 2000, including:

(i) waste growing less than the economy, and less waste going to landfill;

(ii) recycling and composting of household waste doubling in the last four years and on course to meet the Government's target of 25% for 2005/06; and

(iii) the quantity of packaging waste recovered increasing by 50%.

4.2 Despite the improvements the Government recognises there is more that has to be done. Household waste volumes are still rising and meeting the Landfill Directive targets for diverting biodegradable municipal waste from landfill sites remains a challenge for the country as a whole.

4.3 In moving forward, the consultation stresses the need to take a more holistic view of waste and sets waste strategy in the context of:

(i) reducing the contribution to climate change;

(ii) conserving limited natural resources; and

(iii) reducing risk to health and the environment from potentially harmful substances in waste materials.

5. The Policy Framework

5.1 The Government recognises that the current policy framework has not achieved the outcomes that are needed in all sectors. It proposes to address this issue using a range of policy instruments which seek to change the behaviour of all concerned by:

(i) simplifying the regulatory system through reforms to permitting and exemption systems;

(ii) extending Producer Responsibility to prevent waste and increase recycling and recovery, on the basis of voluntary agreements in the first instance;

(iii) keeping the pricing framework under review, including instruments such as the landfill tax;

(iv) continuing public spending support on services to households and businesses through local authorities and a range of other programmes;

(v) helping behaviour change through information, advice and awareness raising;

(vi) providing greater Government leadership, by example in management of public sector waste and procurement; and

(vii) undertaking research to improve the evidence base to inform future policy decisions.

6. Waste Prevention

6.1 The consultation states that less waste should be produced in the first place. This means thinking about the whole life-cycle of products and identifying and targeting products with the most significant waste impacts before they reach the consumer.

6.2 It is suggested that more emphasis needs to be placed on making and buying products which create less waste and on providing the right signals to achieve this. Measures proposed include:

(i) greater emphasis on eco-design;

(ii) increased engagement with business and householders on waste prevention; and

(iii) more agreement with business for them to take responsibility for their products at the end of their life.

6.3 The consultation asks about the priorities for reducing waste and the best ways of engaging both business and consumers to achieve action.

7. Recovering Resources

7.1 For waste that is produced, the thinking has to be shifted towards using waste as a resource, so that materials are recovered where economic, social and environmental benefits can be gained. The consultation poses the question as to whether landfill should eventually become the home of last resort taking only non-biodegradable residues from waste treatment.

7.2 More ambitious national recycling and composting targets for household waste, 40% in 2010 and 50% by 2020, are proposed. There are also targets to reduce the proportion of business waste landfilled, with more help for small businesses to enable them to recycle.

7.3 Recovering value from waste resources through `energy from waste' is supported, provided this is not at the expense of practical waste prevention and recycling. It is noted that decisions about energy from waste need to be informed by the evidence on the environmental, health and economic effects.

7.4 The consultation highlights the high and urgent priority of putting in place the investment capacity to deliver the new infrastructure required across the country. The Government proposes to strengthen central and regional coordination and provide advice on procurement to help local authorities make the necessary investment.

7.5 The need for continuing action to develop markets for recycled materials is recognised and a new management plan for waste imports and exports, focusing particularly on globally traded recyclables, is proposed.

7.6 Better collection and management of household hazardous waste is needed nationally. Options identified include requiring local authorities to provide minimum service levels and making producers (manufacturers and retailers) more responsible for specific materials such as pesticides, cleaning agents or other chemical-based products used in the home.

8. Roles and Responsibilities

8.1 It is a complex task to integrate the various strands of waste policy to deliver the changes that are needed. An institutional framework to ensure the development of necessary links and partnerships is proposed. The key elements are:

(i) establishment of a national cross-departmental Sustainable Waste Programme Board (with external advice) to drive delivery of the strategy;

(ii) a strengthened role for Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to coordinate waste and resource management at a regional level, in partnership with local authorities and the private and voluntary sectors;

(iii) a wider strategic role for local authorities in delivering a `resource economy'. This would fit with the development of local area agreements in:

(a) engaging with local businesses to give advice and to facilitate business waste recycling schemes;

(b) stimulating markets for recycled goods through procurement decisions;

(c) encouraging more recycling collection points in places like shopping centres, workplaces and schools;

(iv) improved interaction between manufactures and retailers, etc and local authorities to help achieve European and national targets; and

(v) helping the voluntary and community sector to make its contribution.

8.2 The consultation argues that a more joined-up approach to waste is needed to make better use of investment in infrastructure and exploit synergies between waste streams. In particular, it is proposed that more integration is needed in the way waste treated by local authorities and waste which comes from business is dealt with.

9. Waste Crime

9.1 As waste management becomes more complex and expensive, there is the potential for a significant increase in waste crime. This includes fly-tipping and other forms of illegal waste disposal. The consultation asks what more could be done to address this by way of targeted prevention and enforcement.

10. Discussion

10.1 The consultation signals a significant change of emphasis in waste strategy for England. Previous national strategies have focused on municipal waste (less than 20% of total waste) with an emphasis on post-consumer actions and end-of-pipe solutions. The current consultation adopts a more holistic view and sets waste management in the context of the production and consumption cycle, including preventing waste through design and maximising the potential of waste materials as raw materials/products to be fed back into the economy.

10.2 This change of emphasis is to be welcomed as it is something the County Council has been working hard to bring about. The new approach reflects the philosophy that was widely supported by Hampshire community stakeholders in the Material Resources Strategy process and set out in the document `More from Less'. The latter has informed the draft Minerals and Waste Development Framework (MWDF) Strategy and Project Integra's draft Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy (JMWMS).

10.3 The consultation proposals are consistent with the policies and approaches set out in the MWDF and the JMWMS, although in a number of respects the longer-term targets and aspirations in these strategies go beyond those proposed in the consultation. Project Integra is also proposing to better integrate municipal and commercial wastes by offering improved services to small and medium-sized businesses.

10.4 The proposal that local authorities could play a wider strategic community leadership role in waste and resource management also mirrors the approach adopted by the County Council via the Natural Resources Initiative. This offers a potential win-win situation in environmental and economic terms through helping businesses operate more efficiently and encouraging technological innovation locally. Encouraging district councils to ensure supportive local development frameworks is also an important issue.

10.5 Thus, if the proposals set out in the consultation were developed in the final strategy in a sensible and effective way, they would assist Hampshire in the achievement of its waste and resource management strategy objectives. The major reservation relates to the lack of clarity/detail about how the Government might go about implementing some of the key proposals. Important issues are about:

(i) how the right balance of `carrots and sticks' to change behaviour across all sectors, including householders, will be achieved in practice;

(ii) clarity of future roles and accountabilities at national, regional and local levels and how these link together, including any wider role for unelected RDAs; and

(iii) ensuring more unified and sustainable funding to provide more certainty to implement the changes that are needed. Currently there is a complex system of more than 25 financial considerations (eg Landfill Tax, Private Finance Initiative, one-off targeted grants, bid funding) that impact on local authority decision making in waste management.

10.6 To some degree the above issues are linked to other Government reviews, including the review of local government structures and the Lyons Inquiry into local government funding, including its wider functions and future role.

10.7 Officers are preparing a detailed response to the consultation, focussing on the issues that need to be addressed to achieve successful implementation. The Committee is invited to contribute to that process by considering the issues raised in this report, particularly:

· What needs to be done to reduce waste and how could business and consumers be best engaged?

· How could recycling of wastes from both households and businesses be increased?

· Should RDAs play a greater role in procuring reprocessing infrastructure and markets for recycled products, given that this represents an economic development opportunity?

· What more can local authorities and the public sector generally do to provide greater leadership on this agenda to `close the loop' in using waste as a resource?

11. Impact Assessments

11.1 The consultation of the review of England's national waste strategy does not compromise the County Council's policy on race and equalities. However, the final strategy might give rise to equality issues, eg in relation to charging for waste services.

Recommendations

1. That the Committee broadly welcomes the philosophy set out in the Government Consultation about the review of England's Waste Strategy.

2. That the Committee advises the Executive Members for Environment of any particular concerns which it believes should be raised in the County Council's response to the Government Consultation.

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