To receive an oral update on the progress of the Waste Strategy Working Group.
Minutes:
The Panel received an update on the work of the waste strategy Working Group. The Group had been established in order to carry out a review of the waste strategy as the latest strategy had expired in 2016. It was also noted that the Government had published an Environment Bill in October 2019 following four national consultations which would influence any future strategy. Key issues identified in the Bill included; the introduction of a Deposit Return Scheme, a requirement for local authorities to collect a consistent set of materials (food waste was likely to be part of this requirement) and that producers would pay the full net costs of recycling or disposing of waste packaging. Any new Waste Strategy would need to take account of any changes imposed by Government.
The Working Group to date had considered the following topics:
· Current Service
· Project Integra
· Waste Prevention
· Case Studies
· Performance Measures
· Waste Composition
· Organic Waste
· Waste Collection systems
· Site Visits
Members questioned the difficulty of comparing the performance of local authorities against each other. It was recognised that this could be a problem and any statistics could not necessarily be compared like for like. Officers when selecting site visits and looking at case studies had tried to look at some authorities comparable to NFDC, East Devon District Council was an example. It was a coastal authority, of a similar size and demographic to NFDC and was inside an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The service EDDC provided was very different to that of NFDC with a much higher recycling rate. It had a 3 weekly residual waste collection, kerbside sorting with a greater range of materials and these were collected on a weekly basis.
The working group had also visited an anaerobic digestion facility for food waste in Piddlehinton, Dorset. The food waste at this facility also produced electricity.
A public engagement survey was due to be carried out from 15 January 2020 for one month with residents in the District Council area, seeking their views on the current service and what they would like to see in any future service. This was to be a targeted survey of about 1,100 residents and would be demographically representative. A non-targeted online survey would also be available, open to everyone however, this would not be demographically representative. The results would be reported to the working group in March.
The next steps for the working group would be to look at different collection systems. The group would consider the service costs, recycling performance, compliance to future legislation and the results of the public engagement survey.
Cllr Blunden, as a member of the Working Group thanked officers for the work they had done so far to assist them.
Members asked about the current infrastructure in place for waste, in particular the Energy Recovery Facility in Marchwood. It was noted that this facility needed a range of different materials in order for it to work efficiently and that any change to the waste collected may have an impact.
There was a discussion about producers and the cost of packaging. It was acknowledged that packaging was useful for some products in order to increase the shelf life of the product and throwing away damaged or rotten food could have a greater environmental impact than that of plastic packaging.