Recycling rates have not improved since 2011 and unless ministers get their plans in place, more plastic waste than ever will end up in landfill, incinerated or exported, MPs have warned.
Ambitious recycling plans have stalled because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has no effective long-term plans to reduce the amount of waste that contributes to climate change.
Targets to generate less waste for businesses and to reuse, recycle and repair more waste for households have fallen short of the 50 percent target for 2020 and are between 43 and 44 percent, according to the Community Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Defra’s continued “lack of clarity” on waste plans and the facilities needed to deal with the tonnes of waste produced in England will jeopardize the level of “vital investment” needed to tackle it effectively, MPs have warned. inferior.”
As a result, “there is a real risk that there will not be enough capacity to cope with the increased recycling volumes resulting from the reforms, meaning packaging will be incinerated, sent to landfill or exported to other countries,” the PAC said . said.
The government wants companies to make less plastic and people to recycle more of it, and has set a target of recycling 65 percent of the city’s waste, including paper, glass and plastic, by 2035.
The PAC said Defra had failed to articulate how the waste system as a whole needed to change, leaving waste management companies unsure and unclear about what it would require.
According to Defra, an important part of minimizing environmental damage from waste is improving waste prevention and reuse. “The goal is to double resource efficiency by 2050, but it is unclear what plans the ministry has to achieve this goal,” the report said.
Over the summer, Downing Street scrapped plans to require manufacturers to cover the cost of collecting and recycling packaging under a so-called extended producer responsibility (EPR) scheme.
Current recycling rates have been just under 45 per cent for several years now, and ministers recently announced a ban on single-use items to increase this further. A bottle recycling scheme planned for 2025 that rewards people for recycling plastic bottles has been criticized for its slow pace and lack of glass.
Defra draws on small trials and international experience to develop its deposit system. The National Audit Office recommended that Defra trial the scheme due to uncertainty about the level of benefits, but Defra rejected the idea.
The PAC said Defra “does not have sufficient data to effectively manage the waste system, which is necessary to understand how waste is processed and to ensure waste exports are legal.”
Reforms to collection and packaging still need to be implemented and communities and businesses will not be able to cope unless the government makes it clear what reforms can achieve. The results of a public consultation on recycling that closed two years ago remain unpublished and Defra has delayed implementation of the first step until 2025 due to “weaknesses” in the department, MPs have said.
Official plans to crack down on waste-related crimes, in which hundreds of tonnes of waste have been dumped, incinerated and illegally shipped to developing countries, have also been shelved. The digital waste tracking plan, which has been delayed for five years, will not be ready until April 2025.
Industry research shows waste crime costs the UK economy £1 million a year through tax evasion, environmental and social damage and loss of legitimate business.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said: “Changing the way we manage waste is vital to saving the environment from further damage and achieving the legally binding target of net zero emissions by 2050.”
“To achieve its goals, it is important that the government encourages a circular economy, where products can be used again or longer.
“Without a clearly articulated government vision of how these important reforms will work in practice, these goals are unlikely to be achievable.”
She added that Defra had no clear plan to achieve its ambitions, meaning consumers, businesses and communities had failed to prepare for the changes and were “hungry for information”.
The committee wants Defra to improve the way it delivers programs in the future to avoid similar delays, and has set a date for when it will announce how much extra companies will have to pay to produce packaging and how the changes will affect local authority funding.
Defra must also explain how it plans to achieve its 65 per cent target, as its simpler recycling program is expected to reach 62 per cent at best.
A Defra spokesman said: “Significant progress has been made in our reforms to reduce waste and improve the use of resources.
“We work with the supply chain to strengthen relationships and ensure they remain informed and engaged.
“We are complying with our agreements. In October we introduced a new, simpler and smarter approach to recycling food waste, which means people across England will be able to recycle the same materials and also have a weekly food waste offer.”
Source: I News
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