Environment Bill (First sitting)

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

There is no requirement on everybody to answer every question, but gentlemen, do either of you wish to add anything to that?

Andrew Poole: From our point of view, one of the things that has become abundantly clear over the past few years is that our members as small businesses are saying that they want to do the right thing, and they want to demonstrate to their customers that they are doing the right thing. Talking about the holistic approach to waste and recycling, a lot of these issues are pragmatic. How do we make it easy for small firms to play their role? On local authorities, obviously, small businesses are not allowed to take their waste to municipal sites. They are not eligible for municipal waste collections in the way that many domestic householders are, despite many of them not using many more different types of waste than those households. Again, that is in the spirit of making it as easy as possible for small firms to comply and play their role. That would be one element of it.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Q I want to follow up on the Minister’s question about a more collaborative, joined-up approach. Obviously, Andrew, local authorities will be your key partners, and you touched on small businesses and the challenges that they may face. Can you go into detail about your resourcing, and the support needed to deliver on the recycling targets?

Andrew Poole: Businesses do not have access to waste collection services provided by local authorities, which means that they have to arrange the collections themselves. That incurs a cost, but one thing that is often overlooked is the opportunity cost for small businesses; the issue is not so much the waste collection service itself. How do you identify a trustworthy waste collector? How do you know what they are doing with that waste? Do they provide all the different types of recycling that you need? Will that come at an additional cost? Do they collect on the right days, when you need it? All of those things that businesses need to think about could be made easier. Giving them access to more domestic-focused waste collection would be one way of looking at that for certain businesses below a certain threshold.

Another thing is pragmatism. If you are talking about a deposit and return scheme, for instance, with which many of our businesses will be involved, do they have the space to do it? Is there practically and pragmatically enough space? Those issues could easily be got over, but they need to be thought about. It comes back to the theme of what we can do, within the existing infrastructure, to make it easier for businesses to comply, even before we start to think about what new things are required. A lot of things could be done today to make it easier for businesses to recycle more, in particular.

Martin Curtois: Owing to the emphasis in the resources and waste strategy on domestic infrastructure and building facilities here, so that we can treat our waste and recycling within the UK, the industry estimates that there is a £10 billion business opportunity for investment in the UK, because there are gaps in regional infrastructure. It is important that we treat as much of both our recyclate and residual waste as possible in the UK. To be honest, some of the borders are closing in terms of waste being treated overseas in northern Europe. Obviously there is public demand for more plastic reprocessing in the UK, because that is best from an environmental point of view. That is really important.

Consistent collections will make things easier for households, because whatever part of the country you are in, you will essentially have the choice to recycle paper and card; plastic bottles; pots, tubs and trays, which at the moment many councils do not recycle; and steels and aluminium. There will also be separate glass and food waste. That will make it easier to recycle and easier, to be frank, to generate revenue from those materials, because they are collected separately. You can imagine that for the anaerobic digestion industry, separate food waste will be beneficial—or if it is food and green, that is used for in-vessel composting. There is a logic in that.

As for individual businesses, as my fellow witnesses will know, there will be mandatory collection of food waste above a certain limit. That is another good way to reduce carbon impact. In terms of the commercial collection schemes that we run, sometimes you can have economies of scale if you collect within a certain commercial trading estate and offer a service to all businesses within that estate. The obvious point, which really I should have made at the start, is that everyone thinks about municipal recycling and what everyone leaves outside their property, but business recycling is just as, if not more, important; there might be more waste involved. Anything we can do to simplify the system for businesses, so that it is less onerous and allows us to reduce our carbon impact quicker, has to be the right move.

[The Chair]

Mr Bellamy, do you want to add anything to that?

David Bellamy: I agree with Martin Curtois about the importance of developing the infrastructure in the UK. This goes back to the point I raised about the PRN crisis. It would be helpful to have an early signal from the Government about their export policy and the fact that we want to gradually reduce exports over time and build up the UK’s capacity to recycle materials. We should also look at how we can work together much more on quality standards for materials; ex-MRFs are another way to help the situation and develop more end markets. Those sorts of things should be looked at. Plus, of course, an early signal on our approach to collection consistency would be helpful. We do not necessarily need to wait until 2023. The earlier we can get signals from the Government about the direction of policy, the more it will help the market to invest, and it would provide certainty going forward.