Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that changes to waste management reflect differing local contexts including (a) availability of space for waste storage, (b) differing collection frequency needs and (c) difficulties in separating food waste in areas where residents predominantly live in flats; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local authorities are empowered to make adjustments in accordance with those contexts.

We want to make recycling easier and ensure that there is a comprehensive, consistent service across England. The Environment Bill stipulates that all local authorities in England must make arrangements for a core set of materials to be collected for recycling from households. This core set includes paper and card; plastic; glass; metal; food waste and garden waste.

Local authorities can still decide to collect the recyclable waste streams co-mingled (i.e. multiple waste streams collected together) in cases where it is not technically or economically practicable to collect the recyclable waste streams separately from each other, or there is no significant environmental benefit in doing so, subject to completing a written assessment. The only exception to this is that food and garden waste must always be collected separately from the dry recyclable waste streams. Local authorities may apply these exceptions in circumstances where there is a lack of available storage space to collect recycling streams separately – including blocks of flats. We have recently consulted on plans to develop further guidance on written exemptions and best practice for local authorities. This guidance will take into consideration views provided by stakeholders during our recent public consultation.

Local authorities will also maintain the ability to decide the frequency of recyclable waste collections, except for food waste which will need to be separately collected on a weekly basis.

Finally, local authorities will be provided with new burdens funding to support adjustments to their waste collection services necessitated by our reforms. We are working to assess the net additional costs of our reforms as provided in the Impact Assessment accompanying our second public consultation on recycling consistency. As part of this process we will engage with local authorities to consider the appropriate nature and timing of funding.