Petitions

Clapham: Cllr Walker

Directorate response on 6 October 2021: thank you for your petition and time you have taken to highlight this to the Council.
The Council currently collects glass for recycling by means of a network of almost 50 glass recycling banks located across the district which collect the glass colour separated to ensure that high quality recycling is achieved. Glass is a unique material which I am sure you will know which can be recycled indefinitely with no loss of quality and without requiring the addition of extra raw material. As the Councils glass is collected in separate streams per colour it is currently able to be sent for remelt and made into new glass bottles and jars. It is harder to recycle glass collected as a single mixed colour stream and often such glass is sent to be reused as road surfacing instead of being recycled.

The tonnage of glass collected via the Council’s network of banks has increased steadily each year, 3,465 tonnes of glass was collected via the banks in 2020/21. A significant increase in tonnage was seen as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic driven by the closure of pubs and restaurants during lockdowns.

The last few years have seen a major update of Central Government waste policy. The Government’s aims and commitments have been outlined in the Resources and Waste Strategy 2018 and the forthcoming Environment Bill. However, there remains a considerable amount of uncertainty over exactly how those aims will be delivered by local authorities in practice. At the time of writing the government has recently ended three consultation exercises which may have a direct and considerable impact on the types and quantities of waste the Council is required to manage in the future, as well as how all that activity is funded.

The Government is committed to introduce packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) following a further consultation. This consultation focused on specific policy proposals for its introduction, including the scope of full net costs, producer obligations, scheme governance, regulation of the scheme, and packaging waste recycling targets. The proposals set out in the consultation document aim to ensure that the producers pay the full net cost of managing this packaging once it becomes waste. This is in line with the polluter-pays principle. The mechanism for how revenue generated from EPR levies gets back to local authorities, who incur the cost of collecting and treating such waste, has yet to be decided.

Moving towards a more circular economy, where resources are kept in use for as long as possible and waste is minimised, and ensuring the UK is a world leader in resource efficiency and resource productivity is a priority for Government. Across the UK, consumers go through an estimated 14 billion plastic drinks bottles, 9 billion drinks cans and 5 billion glass bottles a year. The UK Government made commitments to develop policy which works towards achieving these aims, not least through the development of producer responsibility proposals. Introducing a deposit return scheme forms a key part of these proposals, and has recently been consulted upon. Issues also consulted upon included which material streams will be targeted; how and who collects returned waste and methods for funding the scheme and collection costs.

Increasing consistency in recycling will reduce confusion in the materials that can be collected for recycling at the kerbside. The recent UK Government consultation detailed specific policy proposals for increasing consistency in recycling collected from households, businesses and other organisations. Issues consulted upon included the materials included in each recyclable waste stream, exemptions, statutory guidance and transition timelines for local authorities and businesses. Significantly, there has been limited information as to how such changes will be funded to enable recycling consistency to be implemented successfully.

Collection of glass should ideally be undertaken in vehicles with compartments to keep the glass separated by colour. Glass is an abrasive material once broken and vehicles often have shorter operational lives due to the higher wear and tear as well as requiring more frequent servicing requirements. Due to the weight of the material and payloads of vehicles, the number of properties that may be served by a glass collection vehicle is smaller than for other waste types which may be compacted leading to a higher number of vehicles being required to service all eligible properties. The type of collection container also required careful consideration, manual handling guidelines preclude certain types of containers and collection methods being used to reduce musculoskeletal injuries to collection operatives.

At this moment in time, there is significant uncertainty regarding government waste policy on packaging EPR, deposit return schemes and kerbside recycling. Given the high additional cost of operating such schemes, and the associated increase in carbon emissions for Council operations inherent in the introduction of such a service, it would be most unwise to introduce such a service at this very time.

The Council, however notes the support for a kerbside glass collections scheme, and will continue to explore and investigate any opportunities that may arise for the introduction of such a scheme as government policy develops.