Letter from Resident of Wrexham to MP Martyn Jones 6th February 2007
Dear Mr Jones,
I am writing to you, Mr Jones, as my MP, but please forward as appropriate. I would appreciate a non-platitude response.
My subject is the environment, particularly waste disposal. Two points.
Packaging. Too many
products we buy nowadays are in my view, over-packaged. I know why companies
do this – transportation and presentation. It is often difficult to arrive
at the product one has bought without having to hack through layers of packaging,
especially plastic. I think it is grossly unfair that the consumer is given
responsibility of disposal of the packaging, as I for one do not like to
put it in the council collection bin, except as a last resort. Council recycling
facilities are available here, but I cannot understand why so much packaging
exists in the first place.
In my view it is high time we the public were given some kind of financial
incentive to recycle properly. The ‘throw-away’ society in which we live
cannot go on, as we know, but many people still do and it amazes me just
how full some household collection bins are. Rather than penalise those who
throw away too much, I believe a positive initiative should/could be invented,
whereby we could be financially rewarded in some way (perhaps e.g. a Council
Tax Allowance) It would need a Parliamentary/Assembly decision on this, with
loads of publicity. I think it is not a party-political matter, but is vary
political. Meanwhile landfills keep filling.
I have heard recently that some pressure is being brought to companies re. their packaging. The question is: How much pressure, and when?
I await your reply,
Reply from MP Mr Martyn Jones, 20th March 2007
I have had the enclosed reply from Ben Bradshaw MP, Minister for local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare at DEFRA.
This is a detailed response to the points you raised about the packaging and incentives to recycling, and I hope will show that we are not complacent about the situation.
Yours sincerely,
Martyn Jones
Reply from MP Mr Ben Bradshaw, 14th March 2007
The Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare
Thank you for your letter of 12 February to David Miliband enclosing a copy of one from your constituents of Wrexham about packaging and incentives to recycle. Your constituent has raised a number of interesting points which warrants a detailed reply.
The management of packaging and packaging waste is covered by two sets of Regulations in the UK, the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2005 and the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2003 (as amended). The aim of both of these sets of regulations is to minimise the amount of packaging used in the first place, and hence reduce packaging waste. An additional objective of the Packaging Waste Regulations is to encourage reuse of packaging and increase the recovery and recycling of packaging waste.
The Packaging Waste Regulations are an extension of the ‘polluter pays’ principle. They oblige businesses which have an annual turnover of more than £2 million and which handle more then 50 tonnes of packaging a year to recover and recycle a specified amount of packaging they handle. Therefore, if a producer uses less packaging, they can reduce the costs incurred under these Regulations. The Regulations also require that 60% of packaging is recovered by 2008 and that a minimum of 55% is recycled. The remaining 5% can be recovered through other technologies such as energy from waste.
The Packaging Waste Recycling have succeeded so far in raising the recycling rate in the UK for packaging waste from around 27% in 1997 to 54.4% in 2005. In real terms since the Regulations came into force the total amount of packaging waste recovered and recycled has increased from 3.3 million tonnes in 1998 to almost 6.16 million tonnes in 2005.
The Essential Requirement Regulations place a number of requirements an all packaging placed on the market in the UK, including that it should be manufactured so that packaging volume and weight are limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain necessary levels of safety, hygiene and consumer acceptance for the packed product. These Regulations are enforced by Trading Standards and their effectiveness can be seen by the fact that a number of companies have now been prosecuted for using too much packaging. If people are aware of goods that are over-packaged they may refer the matter to their local Trading Standards Office.
Although legislation is one way of reducing packaging, consumers also have a part to play by choosing goods that are not heavily packaged, buying ‘loose’ food rather than pre-packaged food and using their own bags. Supermarkets are helping consumers by providing recycling facilities at their stores, for example Tesco has plans to double the amount of packaging customers bring back to stores for recycling by 2008, Morrison’s has recycling facilities at 329 stores and Sainsbury’s recently announced a plan to include packaging recycling facilities for consumers at over 300 of their stores.
The Government is also encouraging supermarkets to take greater responsibility for the waste they place on the market and for producers to reduce their waste. Apart from the two sets of Packaging Regulations described above, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) is currently working with retailers through the ‘Courtauld Commitment’, a voluntary agreement which aims to halt packaging growth by 2008 and make absolute reductions in packaging waste by 2010. 13 major retailers, representing 92% of the UK grocery sector, have signed the agreement. I met signatories last November to discuss progress towards meeting the objectives. A lot of progress has been made but more needs to be done if we are to deliver the required reductions in packaging and the retailers were responsive to that message. Three major brands have also signed the Commitment – Unilever, Heinz and Northern Foods – thus widening this impact.
The agreement will contribute to our objective of encouraging more sustainable consumption and production. This is a key priority of the Defra’s Food industry Sustainability Strategy (FISS), under which food retailers and other stakeholders are working together to help the food industry develop sustainability through the widespread adoption of best practice. An industry-led FISS Champions Group is discussing how the food manufacturing sector might best reduce its waste, with a view to obtaining a 15-20% reduction by 2010, and will report its recommendations this year.
The Government is also committed to increasing the landfill tax by at least £3 a tonne each year from its present level of £21 a tonne up to a level of £35 a tonne. In the Pre-Budget report, the Chancellor announced that the Government will consider whether the standard rate of landfill tax needs to increase more steeply from 2008 onwards, or go beyond the £35 per tonne already committed to for the medium to long term, in order to encourage greater diversion of waste from landfill and more sustainable waste management options. By making waste disposal more expensive this will provide a further financial incentive to businesses to reduce their packaging (and other) waste and divert it from landfill for recycling or other forms of recovery.
The Government recently released a report analysing results of pilot studies carried out across England to investigate how positive incentives can encourage householders to recycle and minimise their waste.
The Government is committed to providing more sustainable waste management solutions and to minimising, recovering or recycling as much municipal waste as possible.
Waste not, Want not – A strategy for tackling the waste problem in England (Prime Ministers Strategy Unit, 27 November 2002) called for greater efforts to reduce the rate of waste growth and for more reuse and recycling to combat the country’s growing waste output. It recommends that local authorities who wish to take forward household incentive schemes to help reduce waste volumes and increase recycling should be allowed to do so.
The Government welcomed the Strategy Unit report, accepts the majority of the recommendations and supports the direction or intent of many of the others.
The Government values the input of Local Government Association and local authorities and has consulted them on what can be done within the constraints of existing legislation, what can be learnt from their experiences, and what their preferences would be in establishing a system of household incentives.
Changing householder behaviour is key to driving forward household waste reduction, reuse and recycling performance. The Government believes that household incentives can be an effective way to engage with householders and encourage them to manage their waste more sustainably.
Previous research commissioned by Defra in 2004 revealed that local authorities in England already operate a wide variety of schemes rewarding householders for positive behaviour in the way they deal with their waste. The research also revealed, however, that there had been little systematic evaluation of the costs and benefits of these schemes, and backed the commitment in Defra’s Five Year Strategy launched in December 2004, recommending that Defra work with local authorities to undertake a pilot to bring together a robust evidence base on the effectiveness of different approaches.
The results of the incentive pilot study have provided an evidence base for the future policy development in this area, and the guidance to local authorities on lessons learnt, best practice and costs for the different types of schemes/. These pilot schemes also give Local Authorities a good idea of the sorts of incentives schemes that worked and didn’t work in different areas.
Consultants AEA Technology worked with the Local Authorities during the pilots to ensure there was a robust framework in place for monitoring and evaluating the schemes, to test the effectiveness of the incentives. Most pilots were complete at the end of April 2006 and a detailed report has now been produced which has been published on the Defra website.
Based on the results from this research we conclude that incentives can be a useful tool to authorities that wish to enhance the performance of their waste collection service. However, they have a number of considerations to take into account when choosing an incentive to trial. There is, no ‘one size fits all’ ideal solution. The authority must first and foremost consider the barriers to recycling that it needs to address, such as: lack of participation; excessive contamination; infrequency of collection service; number or size of collection receptacles.
The best solution may then actually be to introduce a service or infrastructure change, for example, collect more material types rather than an offering an incentive alone. Incentives should be seen as a means of maximising the efficiency of waste management infrastructure and service provision that is already available to householders.
The assessment of trials conducted under this pilot programme suggests that the critical success factors to achieving an impact from an incentive scheme are those associated with the actual management of the scheme (Stakeholder Commitment, Ownership, Finance, Project Management and Communications) rather than ‘environmental’ or situational factors – such as geographical location of authority, local index of deprivation or existing recycling rates. The data from the pilot programme shows no direct correlation between the degree of impact of the trials and these latter factors.
With best wishes
Ben Bradshaw
Reply from Karen Sinclair AM for Clwyd South, 9th March 2007
Thank you for your recent letter about packaging and waste in Wales. In regard to the first point you raise on packaging, I agree with you that far too much products are over packaged.
There are guidelines for companies on packaging as business must follow the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste 94/62/EC which seeks to reduce the impact of packaging and packaging waste by introducing recovery and recycling targets for packaging waste.
The main objective is to see packaging and packaging waste minimised as far as possible, to see greater incidences of packaging items, and to see the recovery and in particular the recycling of packaging waste that does arise, increase over the next few years.
These regulations are intended to encourage the minimisation of packaging and packaging waste, incentives reuse and increase the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. Each year there are recovery and recycling targets in the UK business to meet which are designed to enable the UK to meet the recovery and recycling targets in the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive by 31 December 2008.
These can be found on www.defra.gov.uk
On your second point in regard to recycling, it is clear that we do not yet recycle as much waste as we can. Overall, in Wales, around 26 million tonnes of waste are produced per year and municipal waste is growing at around 7% per year. We need to minimise the amount of waste we produce in order to prevent misuse of resources as well as the environmental problems associated with its management.
The Assembly has developed its own national strategy ‘Wise about Waste’ which will help move Wales from an over-reliance on landfill to more sustainable waste management.
We must limit the amount of waste we produce and manage it (including litter and fly tipping) to safeguard the environment and our communities. We must also recycle and compost far more of the unavoidable waste that we produce to reduce to a minimum our need for energy from waste and landfill and finally dispose safely the waste that cannot be recycled or composted.
Locally we are making progress, but there is much to do and I will keep up the pressure on our local authority to ensure it does not lag behind other local authorities in Wales and shirk the responsibilities it must take on.
Yours sincerely
Karen Sinclair AM
Clwyd South
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