02 November 2007
Local government leaders and environmental campaigners are awaiting further details after ministers set out proposals allowing councils to trial 'save-as-you-throw' recycling schemes.
In an eleventh-hour about-turn, a power to allow local authorities to pilot financial incentives for household recycling was included among proposed changes to the Climate Change Bill.
An announcement had been planned for last week but was reportedly vetoed by Downing Street. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has since said the plans are back on — but in pilot form.
Defra's announcement coincided with a stinging report from the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee, which urged ministers to take 'tough decisions and practical steps' to promote large-scale recycling.
The committee's report, published on October 30, said the government had been too slow to reduce the reliance on landfill for waste disposal.
The Local Government Association said the turnaround was a step in the right direction. A spokesman told Public Finance: 'We needed clarity… We have now had that, but we need to see what's in the Bill itself to see whether it gives enough freedom to allow councils to go down this route.'
The Bill is widely expected to be laid before Parliament shortly after next week's Queen's Speech.
Michael Warhurst, senior waste campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said until the text of the Bill was scrutinised it was difficult to know exactly what the government was proposing.
He added that the government's preferred option of revenue-neutral schemes, whereby the money collected by councils was redistributed to residents at the end of the year, was not the one favoured by Friends of the Earth.
'It adds no money to council budgets,' he told PF. Councils would not be allowed to use the income generated by the recycling schemes to fund their implementation and would have to find money from their existing resources.
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