Agenda item

(To receive an update on the development of the strategic plan and any necessary decisions taken)

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership with the first update on the preparation of the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy (JMWMS) and the expected timetable for its production.

It was hoped that this report would give the Partnership confidence that work had started on the Strategy, and it followed on from the audit recommendations which came to the Partnership in 2016.  A dedicated resource had been put in place from the beginning of February 2017, and so a month had now been spent working on the Strategy.  The first task was to produce a draft scoping report around the objectives that the Strategy should incorporate.  This was almost completed and it was hoped that it would be shared with district colleagues shortly.  The timeline and project plan was to have the Strategy in place by July 2018.

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised included the following:

·         It was suggested that there would be three key elements – the total volume, cost, and actual percentage.  There would need to be some early decisions on what percentage of recycling it would be hoped to achieve, as this would be key to the direction of the Strategy.

·         It was queried whether the 50% recycling target remained, and whether it would stay in place following Brexit.  The Partnership was advised that these sorts of questions would come out in the scoping document, and suggestions around what the target should be would be open to debate with the Partners.  It was commented that the target needed to be aspirational not just achievable.

·         There would be a need for the merging of the reality of financial pressures and the impact of trying to achieve these targets, along with the political issue of how important districts believed they were to the electorate on whether there was a move away from or an increased drive to recycle.  The majority of people still believed that Lincolnshire was ambitious with its recycling, as well as people also being confused by what could be recycled.

·         If there was uniformity across the county in terms of recycling mix, some districts would lose some of their mix, whilst others would increase it.

·         There was a need to look at the long term business plan, and it was suggested whether there was a need for a second and larger Energy from Waste facility as a recycling/recovery facility, as authorities were collecting larger amounts of materials, and it was queried how much this would cost.

·         It was queried why recycling was always considered by weight, and suggested that it should be based on the percentage that was removed from the waste stream.

·         There was a need to understand the difference between recycling and recovery.

·         It was commented that WRAP would have a major impact on targets, for example, the inclusion of food waste.  There was a need for input from the WRAP project before recycling targets for the county were set.

·         Whilst the scoping document was being prepared, there would be a need to consider how things would be recycled in the future as things changed all the time, for example there was now a method for building roads with plastics.

·         It was acknowledged that 55% was an aspirational target for recycling, but at one point the County's recycling was at 53%.  The EU target was 50% by 2020, Lincolnshire reached this target in 2006, but it dropped in 2012.  It was reported that if Lincolnshire could include Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) in its recycling the amount of waste recycled would increase to more than 50%.  The increased green waste being collected in Boston would also contribute.

·         It was acknowledged that there were unintended consequences to changes to the recycling collected as the EfW was designed to have food waste included within the residual waste, and if this was removed, this loss would need to be mitigated.

·         It was commented that it was very positive that Partners wanted to aspire to be as effective as they could be for the public of Lincolnshire.

·         It was queried whether the target was about quality or quantity, and that whichever it was there was a need for clarity.  Would it be better to add to the mix to increase the weight to reach the target, or to have the quality, which may make the material collected more valuable.

·         It was queried whether the Partnership felt that it had much influence in reducing waste, such as engaging with retailers to reduce the packaging of products.  It was reported that several years ago the County Council had 3 full time staff to address the issue of excess packaging, and they did manage to get some prosecutions, and they also did work which was tied in to the Love Food Hate Waste campaign.  However, with increasingly austere times a lot of the resources for this work were lost.

·         It was suggested whether some retailers could be invited to the Partnership to discuss the issues around packaging, and work in partnership rather than through enforcement.  However, it was noted that previous research on this matter had indicated that the public wanted their products in this type of packaging.  It was reported that customers did have the legal right to leave any excess packaging in the store when they had paid for their goods.

·         It was noted that all issues which had been raised had been captured in the scoping document, and this gave comfort that officers were progressing in the right direction.

·         It was suggested that maybe it was the manufacturers who needed to be engaged with, as the retailers would accept the stock as it came.  It was commented that manufacturers had a part to play, and there was a need for some national legislation.

·         A big difference could be made by companies such as Amazon, who had a reputation for delivering small products in large boxes.

·         There had been a suggestion regarding a scheme to put a deposit on glass bottles, however, ministers had not been supportive.  It was queried whether this could be pursued with local MP's.

·         In relation to the quality vs quantity issue, it was noted that the weight of the recyclables did not tell a lot about the material.  If it was to be collected based on quality, there would be a need to study the markets so that authorities were doing meaningful recycling.

·         It was queried whether someone from Trading Standards could attend a future meeting to provide a trading standards point of view about activities to reduce excess packaging.

RESOLVED

1.    That the progress made to date be noted.

2.    That further progress reports be brought to each meeting of the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership.