2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003,
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Government Waste Strategy
27 Nov 2002
The long-awaited review of the Government’s
Waste Strategy provides a welcome boost to waste minimisation and recycling
but does little to restrain the building of massive incinerators across
the country, Friends of the Earth said today. Friends of the Earth’s
key tests for the strategy were:
- It must promise a doorstep recycling service
for every household – it failed to do this but strongly supported
doorstep recycling as the way forward. This raises the chance of Joan
Ruddock MP’s Private Members Bill on doorstep recycling being
passed in this Parliamentary session.
- It must provide £200 million a year for
local authority recycling – Gordon Brown has announced £100
million a year from reforming the landfill tax credit scheme for public
spending on “sustainable waste management”. This starts
from 2003-04. In addition he said will increase the landfill tax escalator
to £3 per year in 2005/6 in a fiscally neutral way but not indicated
where the £100 million a year raised will go.
- It must set a statutory recycling target
of 50 per cent recycling by 2010/2015 with a higher target fro
m 2020 – it did not do this but suggests that the
strategy will lead to 45 per cent recycling by 2015 (although it provides
no certainty in this).
- It must put a brake on the building of
massive incinerators and instead favour the building of small-scale
recycling plants to take recyclables
out of residual waste and treat the rest – one of
the reviews biggest failings - despite widespread opposition to large-scale
incineration across the country, and new research showing that there
are much better ways than incineration to treat residual waste (waste
that isn’t recycled). Useful measures would have included removing
the £50 million worth of subsidies given to incineration and/or
the introduction of an incineration tax and/or the introduction of
a moratorium on large-scale incineration. Friends of the Earth understands
that the Strategy Unit wanted to restrain incineration but were blocked
by the Treasury, which wants to keep incineration as a low cost option
for dealing with residual waste.
The Strategy Unit report makes useful recommendations on waste minimisation,
an issue previously ignored by the Department of the Environment, and
suggests long - term targets to reduce “disposal of waste”,
although this does not include reducing incineration. It is also warm
on allowing local authorities to choose to charge householders by the
amount of waste they throwaway rather than recycle.
Mike Childs, Senior Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:
“This report will only move the UK from
the Conference League for recycling to Division Two. It
just isn’t good enough for a country with aspirations for
Premiership environmental behaviour. Communities across the country
will be up in arms about the Government’s failure to tackle incineration.
They will lay the blame firmly at the door of Gordon Brown who
continues to lavish the incinerator industry with undeserved subsidies.”
Contact details:
Friends of the Earth
26-28 Underwood St.
LONDON
N1 7JQ
Tel: 020 7490 1555
Fax: 020 7490 0881
Web: www.foe.co.uk/feedback.html
