Waste in Wales -The challenges and the opportunities

I was aware of the task ahead in my new role as the WLGA's environment, sustainability and housing spokesperson which encompasses the waste portfolio, having been involved in a complex and drawn out PFI waste procurement in my home authority in Wrexham. Along with an ageing population, housing, etc, waste is one of the biggest long-term service, political and financial risks facing Welsh local government. We do not believe, however, that it is just a local government problem. As far as the WLGA is concerned, local government and the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG)are in it together. While the responsibility falls on the 22 unitary councils as both collection and disposal authorities, the Future Directions proposal issued by WAG towards the end of 2007 creates a relatively rigid national framework from within which the councils can operate. Our view is that if waste is to be delivered in a certain way a spirit of working together in partnership is crucial to ultimate success.

The latest statistics for the 1st quarter of 2008-09 show that the Welsh public is now recycling 36 per cent of its waste. Unlike England, all our authorities have the same targets. It looks promising that the 40 per cent WAG target for 2009-10 will be met and, hopefully, exceeded. Even better - and some would argue, more importantly - the Welsh LAs have met the 2009-10 Landfill Allowance Scheme requirements two years early. The amount of BMW allowed to be landfilled in 2009-10 is 710,000t, but in 2007-08 the Welsh LAs landfilled only 680,912t. Waste arisings - another good story - appear to be stagnating and in some of our LAs have reduced quite considerably so, fingerscrossed, we will comfortably sail through the first EU target year.

I can't claim, however, that we are as confident about 2012-13. The LAs allowances decrease quite dramatically to 470,000t for that target year so a big push on waste diversion, recycling collection and food waste treatment for many of our councils is needed. Wales is not flush with residual waste plants and we know that it would take a miracle in terms of procurement and planning for any plants to be built and operational prior to 2012. We are, therefore, reliant on WAG's modelling exercises and progressing with food waste collections and treatment to ensure we meet our responsibilities.
Residual procurement must proceed and it is unfortunate that much of the work has been stalled whilst WAG reconsidered its Future Directions proposal. WAG still needs to sort out how it is to fund the massive affordability gap that has been identified. Councils can't go out for procurement in an uncertain policy and financial world. We also have to consider the implications of a 30 per cent cap on energy from waste and what this means for some of our very low tonnage areas (those areas can be very large geographically). All of us face issues of feasibility and, more importantly, affordability.

However it isn't all doom and gloom. The WLGA works very closely with the 22 councils to ensure their voices are heard and their issues presented to national government. In addition, the WLGA's Waste Improvement Programme on the back of the peer review series has unearthed a huge amount of good practice which is going to be taken forward in a strategic manner to ensure that the high performance that has been uncovered becomes normal practice over the next few years. My own council at Wrexham, for example, is trialling the use of a computerised monitoring scheme. This allows our operatives to monitor residents' activities to ensure we know who is and isn't participating. By knowing who is not participating in recycling we are able to more effectively target our communications and support to those
householders. The results of this trail through the improvement programme, will be shared with all councils. If it is deemed reasonable and practical then there is no reason why council's cannot work together on procurement of kit, production of consistent approaches, etc - anything which saves time and money and secures results is an absolute necessity!!

Importantly we know we cannot achieve the proposed 70 per cent target in Future Directions without the ownership and input of the public. WLGA hosts, and I am privileged to chair, Waste Awareness Wales, the campaign set up to persuade the people of Wales that throwing things in the bin is bad and waste reduction and recycling is good. WAW every year runs a national advertising campaign and this year on Halloween saw the launch of the "ghost train", illustrating that although recycling a third of the waste is good, throwing away two thirds to landfill is still scary and that with a push on home omposting, reusing furniture and recycling, big achievements can be made. The campaign is supported by continual public relations and support to councils. WAG has indicated a potential big push on communications in the next few years and we believe that for communications to be effective there has to be a national-to-local dimension. National messages reinforced and informed by local needs can only deliver success so WAW has a challenging time over the next year or so to turn this aspiration into reality.

Waste in Wales is a major challenge. We realise this and Welsh local government will not shirk from its responsibilities. We are confident that once the policy has been settled and a solution to the funding issue resolved, then it will be full steam ahead.
Hopefully, in four years time if I am asked to report on my time as WLGA spokesperson, I will be reporting as I did earlier that Wales will have met its landfill allowance two years early. Optimism, hope and confidence are needed. Once we resolve the details, then I am confident that Welsh local government will deliver.