Recently issues surrounding waste management appear to be receiving greater attention from both the public and the press.  From public outrage over fortnightly bin collections, to concerns over the disposal of nuclear waste, everyone appears to have an opinion.  At the same time various business opportunities are opening up for those able to find sustainable and more environmentally friendly methods for dealing with waste.  This week’s Knowledgeshop looks at the various political issues tied up in our rubbish.

The End of Landfill?

It has been largely acknowledged that Britain will need to make fairly rapid and significant changes to the way in which our waste is managed.  The current reliance on landfill is unlikely to remain sustainable, and the Government has recognised the need to look at alternative ways for dealing with waste.

This is not a problem unique to Britain, but rather a global trend.  In Naples the situation is so dire that everyday a 50-wagon freight train full of waste is sent to Hamburg to be incinerated.  Fresh Kills, a rubbish dump on Staten Island in the US is now the largest man made structure on earth, covering 12sqkm, and had to be closed in 2001. 

With a past trend for increasingly over packaged produce, and economic prosperity encouraging increased consumption in recent times, our levels of waste per person have increased dramatically.  In 1984 the British produced 397kg or rubbish per person, by 2006 this was 511kg, although a far greater proportion was being recycled.

Policy Initiatives

Policymakers have for some time now realised the need to seek alternative forms of waste management, and to encourage the general public to adopt more sustainable and environmentally friendly habits.

In 1999 the EU Landfill Directive set a number of targets to curb the ever growing levels of rubbish being produced by member states.  The first of these was to reduce the amount of waste disposed of by landfill to more than 75% of 1995 levels.

In 2007 the Government brought out their own revised Waste Management Strategy for England.  This had an emphasis on prevention and re-use of waste, the general aim being to meet and exceed the Landfill Directive diversion targets, and to encourage recycling of resources and recovery of energy.

Targets proposed included reducing the amount of household waste, not re-used, recycled or composted by 29% in 2010.  They also aimed to increase levels of recycling and composting of household waste by at least 40% by 20120.

The Political Initiative

Household waste collection is a service which virtually every household takes advantage of, and indeed views as an essentially service provided as part of council tax payments.  It is then not surprising that public reactions to measures aimed at reducing household waste have been mixed. 

Many feel the proposed move to fortnightly collections risks increased cases of fly tipping and vermin.  To date changes to waste collection services have occurred fairly rapidly, and often very inconsistently throughout the country.  This has lead to members of the public feeling confused and angered by what they often view as declining services, which have become overcomplicated.  Households are also increasingly required to sort their own waste for potentially valuable resources.

Some have also raised concerns over practices of “greenwashing”, whereby schemes introduced to appear green, in practice do not provided a significant environmental benefit.  For example, whilst consumers may be forced to sort their rubbish to ensure more can be recycled, this is only of benefit if the companies contracted to manage the waste do so in an efficient way.  In particular transporting waste to foreign countries to be processed has a significant negative effect on the overall carbon footprint of the process.  This has caused members of the public to be sceptical of the true benefits of new recycling initiatives.

The Conservatives in particular seem to be attempting to take advantage of this discontent.  David Cameron recently launched their Blue/Green Charter with the aim of using green taxes to change behaviour patterns rather than simply to raise revenue.  He has also argued that contrary to the views of many commentators, environmental issues are not simply a boom time luxury, but need to be addressed regardless of the economic climate.

However, the Tory position seems a little confused, with a visible conflict between those Shadow Ministers pushing a green agenda and those taking a more populist line against “stealth taxes” , use of surveillance to spot people that don’t recycle, and fortnightly collections.  Eric Pickles, the Shadow Communities Secretary, it was recently revealed, has written to all Conservative councillors to out into effect a plan of non-cooperation with the Government at a local government level.  The letter stated that Conservative councillors found collaborating with Labour ministers over plans to introduce unpopular bin taxes would be exposed by the party frontbench in Parliament.  Conservative Councillors will according to the letter also be receiving packs to campaign in next years council elections against the bin taxes.

At time it has seemed that politicians are happy to utilise the rhetoric of combating the environmental impact of waste, but fail to support relevant policies in practice.  In particular in February 2007, the European Parliament voted to set a binding target for all EU countries to stabilise their production of waste at present levels by 2012. 

British and other ministers rejected this proposal, with Defra concerned that national production and consumption patterns and their relative economic growth were not adequately being taken into account. 

Economic Impact

It should not be forgotten that waste management is also big business.  The direction of policy since the 1990s has been largely to open up and develop markets for waste to make it easier for private companies to trade waste for profit.  Many would argue that current policies are in fact driven primarily by market factors, as opposed to the purely environmental ones purported.

The other key point to note is that while to date initiatives have focused largely on increasing recycling of household waste, this makes up less than one tenth of the more than 330million tons of waste being produced in Britain each year, and is dwarfed by that from construction and demolition, the mining industry and commerce.

Businesses are now beginning to feel the pressure to deal with their waste more efficiently.  Following a recent ECJ ruling, it is likely that any business that moves waste themselves, and this includes their own, must be licensed.  The ruling will affect large number of smaller businesses, all of whom are likely to have to pay £30 per year for a licence to transport their own rubbish.

The Waste Strategy of England 2007, also made several proposals to curb the level of non recycled waste from businesses.  This included aims to ensure businesses build resources efficiency into business models; produce less waste; design less wasteful products; and use recycled inputs.

Retailers in particular were targeted, via encouragements to reduce packaging waste; reduce usage of single use carrier bags; and use influence on consumers and the supply chain to change waste management habits.

Through combined initiatives, commercial and industrial waste landfilled are expected to fall by 20% by 2010, compared to 2004.

Nuclear

There is one distinct area of waste management policy that has perhaps caused more controversy than any other – nuclear waste.  Largely unsuccessful forays into nuclear energy have left Britain with one of the world’s largest stockpiles of plutonium.  With oil prices seemingly spiralling out of control, there is a renewed enthusiasm for nuclear energy, as a possible economic and environmental solution.  Encouraging investment in nuclear would of course only exacerbate the current dilemma over how to deal with the resulting waste – particularly given that there appear to be very few suitable sites for disposal.

Recently Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that, rather than attempt to impose Britain’s stockpile of intermediate and high-level waste on unwilling citizens, the Government would instead invite local authorities to bid for it, in return for generous cash rewards for the community.  Understandably this solution was viewed as highly controversial and it will be interesting to see which, if any, local authorities take up this opportunity.