In last week’s newsletter I reported an example of consumer backlash against what, in my opinion, is one of the worst excesses of the packaging industry. I make no apologies for picking up the subject again, though this time round I want to consider the subject of waste more generally and, in particular, at the findings of a very interesting report, published last week by the think tank Policy Exchange, which recommends a radical overhaul of Britain’s waste management systems.
‘A Wasted Opportunity: Getting the Most Out of Britain’s Bins’ sets out a strategy to maximise the potential of domestic waste, while cutting household waste bills and removing the hassle people experience from having too many bins and overly complicated waste collection patterns. The report asserts that if we get the local government structure and incentives right, then the full potential of the materials that we currently throw away will be realised.
The statistics are stark indeed. Here in the UK we still send more than half our waste to landfill; in excess of 15.5 million tonnes of household waste was buried and left to rot in 2007/8, a practice that not only runs the risk of attracting fines of up to GBP366m just for missing EU imposed targets, but also takes no account of lost revenues and benefits from the value left untapped in the waste stream.
The report’s authors believe that the reforms they propose could cut household waste bills (currently estimated to be around £100 per household per year) by up to a half. These savings come from realising increased value from waste by enhancing recycling and energy recovery, economies of scale in collection and disposal and the further use of incentives. They also assert that our present system achieves poor results because it is not designed for the challenges we face. On the subject of climate change, the drive to recycle more has actually led to more carbon emissions from some materials. And on the energy front, the claim is that food and biodegradable waste could help deliver energy security by providing nearly 50% of the gas needed by households in the UK. So, what does the report propose?
“Abolish recycling tonnage targets for local government” is a firm recommendation of the report, which adds that the ‘target culture’ has simply goaded local authorities into collecting materials of “marginal environmental and economic benefit”. It is clear that the recycling industry has all but collapsed as a result of the current recession, though indications are that it will recover somewhat this year. The public’s attitude towards the morality of recycling has also been dented by recent reports that carefully sorted wastes are simply going to landfill because the markets for these materials have dried up.
Using waste to generate energy should become a “central pillar” of government policy, the report urges. Energy can be extracted from organic (mainly food) waste via the products of anaerobic digestion (biogas), and from mixed waste streams through more conventional energy from waste (EfW) processes. Removing food waste from the residual waste stream could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the report suggests, and proposes that food waste should be collected separately on a weekly basis.
The Institution of Civil Engineers has estimated that 17% of electricity generated in the UK could come from waste through a mix of incineration and the reprocessing of waste into ‘solid recovered fuel’. While the report’s authors believe this to be an optimistic estimate, it nonetheless concedes that EfW offers an important source of energy for the future when set against the unknown potential of renewables, uncertainties surrounding our ailing conventional power generation infrastructure and the vagaries of foreign energy imports.
But these benefits must be set against the investment needed to realise any practical use of energy derived from waste. The National Grid says that, despite that fact that biogas could provide up to half of the UK’s gas needs as well as contributing significantly to a reduction in CO2 emissions, the cost of establishing an anaerobic digester infrastructure could be as much as GBP10bn.
The question as to how all this is to be paid for is significant, and one the report examines in some detail. Of course, we cannot escape the fact that it will ultimately be funded by taxation. Waste resources are currently paid for through local government budgets and are thus dependent upon Council Tax revenues, which are a political hot potato, to say the least. By way of mitigation, the report recommends that waste charges are itemised on Council Tax bills as a precursor to direct charging. The authors believe that by demonstrating the relatively small amount each household contributes towards this service, compared with the currently itemised cost of Police and Emergency Services, would, given time, enable a shift to be made to variable and direct charging.
Such an approach would allow the introduction of incentives to encourage reluctant householders to participate in any future schemes. Bringing much needed transparency to how waste services are funded would enable tax payers to hold their local authorities to account more effectively. The report’s authors believe that local councils should be free to offer incentives, discounts and other innovations in how waste is charged for, driving down costs and improving value for money.
You can read the full report here
Les Hunt
Editor