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ESA Parliamentary Seminar
Maximising Recycling: the Ingredients of Success
Dirk Hazell, ESA Chief Executive
House of Commons Wednesday 14 January 2004
Mr Chairman, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen.
As our industry's purpose is to deliver environmental protection to the standard set by public policy, we are natural supporters of economically viable and environmentally beneficial recycling.
Three years ago we welcomed the establishment of the Waste and Resource Action Programme.
Two years ago we enthusiastically contributed to the review of our sector by the Cabinet Office under the chairmanship of the Secretary of State in the hope that it would produce the UK's orderly and timely compliance with the Landfill Directive.
Last year we welcomed the establishment of the Waste Implementation Programme.
For all that, as of today in what is perhaps the last full year of the present Parliament, not one of the three drivers under the Government's direct control-planning law, regulation, and funding management of household waste-yet points to the UK's compliance with the Landfill Directive. If one looks to deeds rather than words, it is not even clear that lessons have been learned.
If three years ago, two years ago or even one year ago I had had the temerity to suggest in this room that we would start 2004 with fundamental uncertainty about the future management of hazardous waste, many would have said this was unduly pessimistic. In the event, every sign is that from July hazardous waste could indeed make the 'fridge fiasco seem like a vicar's tea party.
There were many who hoped at the start of this Parliament that future governments would not need to ask the European Commission for four year derogations under the Landfill Directive. On anything like current performance, towards the end of this Parliament, future governments will find it challenging to secure compliance even with derogations.
If one thinks of the Government as a 'bus and the UK as its passenger with our destination as compliance with the Landfill Directive, we've broken down a few times, got lost a few times, there have been a few brawls among those on board and on top of all that the driver has decided to make a few detours to take in supposedly scenic routes. As and when we the passengers do arrive at the destination of compliance with the Directive, we may look a little dishevelled as we totter off the 'bus!
In such circumstances, it reflects well on our industry that ESA's Members are still willing to base their commercial strategy on the positive assumption that the UK will comply with the Landfill Directive.
Our industry's approach is an act of faith. After all, on current trends England will still landfill about three times more biodegradable municipal waste in 2020 than the Directive allows. Where we can be, we are positive. After all, "it's being so cheerful as keeps us going."
Last year, we did have something to welcome with Joan Ruddock's Private Member's Bill. The resulting Household Waste Recycling Act was not exactly as she or we wanted, but it does represent progress. So does the fact that this year, for the first time, local authorities will be judged against statutory recycling targets. The primary role of John Burns' Waste Implementation Programme will be to support local authorities in achieving these targets and we wish all concerned well.
Leadership in some local authorities has transformed waste management. The current edition of our magazine 'Resource Management & Recovery' highlights the successful performance of several successful authorities working in far-sighted partnership with ESA's Members to deliver environmental benefit in the service of local communities.
The underlying reality, however, is that while some local authorities have done really well, well enough no doubt to enable the Government to report that England will achieve its 2003/04 national recycling target of 17%, with eight authorities achieving recycling rates of more than 25%, the underlying reality is that most local authorities have still to comply with the Government's targets, with eight local authorities achieving recycling rates of less than 2% and at least 10% not increasing their recycling rates at all in the last year.
We have always praised the Government for using output based rather than input based measures of recycling in its Best Value Performance Indicators, an approach vindicated by the European Waste Statistics Regulation.
There is of course far more to recycling than kerbside collection.
Regulated facilities need to be built to process household waste after its collection. For such facilities to be built, the planning system has to grant consents. Perhaps the UK will need 3,000 items of new infrastructure to implement the Landfill Directives and other Directives relevant to recycling.
I suggested just now that none of the three drivers under the Government's direct control yet pointed to compliance with the Landfill Directive. There is no realistic prospect of the current planning regime delivering the facilities required to achieve much higher levels of recycling and recovery. A more responsive planning system is an essential pre-condition to achieving a framework for best practice in recycling.
Planning might not be DEFRA's responsibility but it is the responsibility of the Government as a whole to ensure that it can deliver compliance with its European obligations. Government officials must stop blaming other departments and instead achieve effective coordination between and within Government departments. Clear political leadership is an essential pre-condition to achieving a Government machinery to deliver a framework for best practice in recycling.
Recycling more household waste costs more than landfilling which is precisely why so much has been landfilled rather than recycled. In the first five years of the present Government, English local authorities and ESA's Members were able to achieve a 50% increase in the rate of recovery from municipal waste-and this was nearly all recycling or composting-for a real increase in costs of less than 10%. We all know the easy stuff has been done first and that this is economically unsustainable.
ESA has for years offered responsible advice on how better environmental outcomes can fairly and effectively be financed. For the Government to ensure the financial means are in place to enable local authorities and ESA's Members together to improve environmental outcomes is an essential pre-condition to achieving a framework for best practice in recycling.
The Government trailed the Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme as a flagship innovation. Delaying the scheme for a year is not exactly a bright green light to local authorities and ESA's Members to invest in recycling infrastructure. This is exacerbated by the fact that we still do not know whether the Government is committed to statutory recycling targets beyond 2005-06 or in which direction they might move. One never knows.
The right regulatory framework would be the keystone in a framework for best practice in recycling. It would be consistent, effective and transparent. It would work with the grain of markets and it would be focussed on partnership and environmental outcomes rather than add even more layers of prescription to regulation of process. Whether or not the current structure of environmental regulation in the UK could evolve to deliver such an outcome is a moot point but at least the Government is assisted by a regulator and by a waste management industry which understands how current thinking in Brussels could deliver both more recycling and a stronger economy.
At ESA's Annual Conference in October, I suggested how a radically new approach to regulation could help to transform environmental outcomes and partnerships between the manufacturing and resource management sectors. The risk-based regulatory system I described, working towards clearly identified environment outcomes and applying economic instruments, is consistent with the European Commission's work to develop its Thematic Strategies in resource use and recycling. It is also consistent with the Government's strategy to achieve more sustainable levels of production and consumption.
One essential pre-condition to achieving this revolution in regulation is much better data on waste and resource flows throughout the economy, and much greater mutual trust between regulator and regulated. The Environment Agency has spent nearly £5 billion but when it comes to waste still does not really know what material flows it is regulating.
In the absence of an initiative from DEFRA, we welcome the Agency's opening of debate with its publication of its pamphlet "Delivering for the Environment". The fact remains, however, that ESA's Members still spend millions of pounds on useless bureaucracy, some of which has perverse environmental outcomes, simply to maintain existing operations. The UK needs a world class environmental regulator providing value for money and focussed on securing real environment benefit and catching criminals rather than form-filling, populism and soft targets.
These are issues the Government must address as a priority.
The House of Lords Select Committee has rightly suggested, albeit in more genteel terms, that the Government needs to get its act together on the evolving European Agenda.
What is happening in Brussels now will affect the UK in the very near future.
We believe the European Commission's current agenda can help the Government to make more certain progress towards the destination of compliance with the Landfill Directive and similar Directives relevant to recycling.
ESA has for years been enthused by the prospect of reshaping waste management from an end-of-pipe solution into an industry much more integrated into future production processes and product lifecycles. When economic and environmental objectives overlap, both can be achieved and sustained.
We believe that if the Government decides it really means business in terms of delivering on the environmental agenda, the rewards for the UK are potentially enormous.
Public spending is rising as a proportion of GDP. Perhaps one sign the Government really means business in setting a framework for best practice in recycling would come on the day it sets itself transparent and challenging deadlines and targets for procurement of recycled materials.
Thank you. 
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