Waste not want not - States Assembly

minimisation targets for office waste
streams, for example, for office paper.
Recommendation 8:
ODPM and the LGA should consider setting
voluntary environmental procurement
targets for local authorities to encourage
the purchase of more recycled goods and
services, to minimise waste volumes and to
encourage them to recycle more of their
waste. These targets might be incentivised in
a number of ways, for example through links
to implementing service area targets within
Sustainability Action Plans or re-instating
waste in Beacon status for councils.
Option (e): targets for local
authorities
6.31 The Government has set statutory
performance standards for each Waste
Collection Authority and Waste Disposal
Authority. These have been set at a level to
ensure that each authority contributes
proportionately to the achievement of the
national targets in 2003/4 and 2005. 94 In
addition there are nine Best Value Indicators for
waste management. 95
6.32 The statutory targets are intended to drive
up the rate of recycling but they risk creating
perverse incentives. Since the targets are
expressed as percentages of total waste
tonnages, there is a particularly strong incentive
to recycle the heaviest items such as green
waste, but this may not be the economically or
environmentally most efficient outcome.
Moreover, they risk encouraging the collection
of additional green waste, which could be more
cost-effectively managed through home
composting. 96 There are no explicit targets for
waste reduction, despite Waste Strategy 2000
stating that these should be a priority. 97
6.33 The nine Best Value Indicators (see Box 22)
also contain various anomalies:
●
●
they are based on the tonnage collected with
no indicator of success in reducing waste
collected;
they include an indicator for ‘the cost of
waste disposal per tonne’. But costs could be
reduced by disposing of more waste at
landfill sites.
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
94
Taking performance from the 1998/99 baseline data, these standards equate for many authorities to doubling their 1998/99 recycling
rate by 2003/4. Audit Commission Waste Management: Guidance for improving services
95
see http://www.bvpi.gov.uk
96
Where local authorities are offering green waste collections, there is evidence of a significant increase in waste growth compared to
those that do not. Parfitt J. (2002)
97
Evidence suggests a correlation between waste reduction and those authorities that have encouraged home composting. However, in
some cases local authorities have encouraged waste growth through issuing 240 litre bins, compared to the normal bin size of 140
litres, and proposing that waste is only collected fortnightly even though pressure to maintain service levels has often resulted in
weekly collections. Parfitt J. (2002)
70