Collecting Waste from North London

KEY MESSAGES

Better to reduce purchase than to put out for Veolia
Better to reuse than to put out for Veolia
Recyclables are best clean and not mixed together
Food waste in caddies – less smell, less vermin
Stuff in UK’s black bags get burnt, put in landfill or sent to poor countries

Every Borough has the responsibility to manage its own waste. Haringey contracts with Veolia for the collection services and with the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) for disposal.

The Veolia contract runs from April 2011 to April 2025. Of note in the Veolia Key Services Summary is the “Environmental Enhancement through Engagement” which includes £500 a year per school “for engagement” and, lamentedly contracts to achieve carbon savings by using Diesel vehicles! Note that diesel vehicles do indeed have lower carbon emissions than petrol, but, even the new models pollute the streets.

The cabinet member in Haringey responsible for the collection stages of waste including street scene improvement and the public realm and waste management and enforcement is Cllr Seema Chandwani at seema.chandwani@haringey.gov.uk

Increasing the collection of recyclables?

UK measures to increase recycling - from 2023
The Conservative Manifesto 2019 (p43) promised to introduce a deposit return scheme (DRS) for plastic and glass; an extended producer responsibility scheme (EPR) and to ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries.

Defra’s Waste and Resource Effciency Fact Sheet details how the Environment Bill, in passage has been designed to enable the Deposit Return Scheme and Extended Producer Responsibility scheme, in conjunction with Consistency in Recycling, to make massive improvements to the handling of recycling and waste across England. The Environment Bill’s current version mandates that all English Waste Collection Authorities will collect these six separate recycling streams:
•glass
•metal
•plastic
•paper and card
•food waste
•garden waste

There may be exemptions for Local Authorities to collect some ‘co-mingled items, by agreement with the Secretary of State if ‘it is not technically or economically practicable to collect separately, or if there is no significant environmental benefit from separate collection’. The Bill also provides powers to the Secretary of State to add new recyclable waste streams through regulations later. A new waste stream could be mandated if it is suitable for recycling or composting and there is a market for it after collection.

Beyond the Environment Bill

The proposals to build on the Environment Bill in line with the election promises to include:
- Dry Recycling changes – moving away from co-mingling dry recyclables because ‘Evidence shows that recyclable waste streams that are collected separately from other recyclable waste streams and residual waste are of a higher quality than those collected in a co-mingled system and fetch higher prices on secondary materials markets’. The proposal is for foil, foil trays, metal aerosols cans, metal jar lids and aluminum tubes to be put in the metal stream (with householders told to put heavily soiled items in residuals and advised how to empty aerosols safely). Eventually plastic film and flexible packaging could be collected in a new stream, but initially will be in the plastic stream together with more front of store collections.
- Food and Drinks Containers and Cartons – ‘the majority of food and disposable drink cartons are exported or treated as non-target material and disposed of as residual waste. Both aseptic and chilled cartons are, however, recyclable and end markets exist for these 9 materials’. 70% of drinks containers are put into the kerbside recycling collection currently, but the calculation of the DRS Impact Assessment is that this will be reduced to only 7% and that 85% will be returned for deposit – leaving only 8% that may be put in black bags’. It is proposed to move cartons from the card stream to the plastic stream. (as UK paper mills typically do not want to receive laminated materials).
- Food Waste – The Bill also expects ‘food waste to be treated through anaerobic digestion or In Vessel Composting (IVC) rather than Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) processes’. Food waste will need to be collected at least weekly, separately from other household waste and from the dry recyclable waste, using free caddy liners, and sent for recycling or composting.
- Garden Waste – The current Environment Bill version will require that garden waste is collected in a separate stream, and the Consistency consultation proposes that this is at no cost to the householder – unless an exemption has been obtained to collect it with food waste.‘The collection of garden waste for recycling or composting has several benefits, including job creation and diverting the material from residual waste streams where it can end up in landfill and release harmful greenhouse gases. The recycling of garden waste also generates compost or digestate, contributing to a more circular economy’ and ‘a free garden waste collection delivers carbon savings’ based on ‘a 25% increase of garden waste tonnage collected for recycling, shifted from residual waste’.
The cost to Local Authorities

The cost of ‘new burdens’ is to be covered by Government – including up front transition costs and ongoing operational costs. For instance the ‘Government will ensure that local authorities are resourced to meet any new burdens arising from this policy’. Though investment will be needed in new machinery for LAs that do not currently collect and handle plastic film, this will be paid for by the Extended Producer Scheme.

Timescale

The timescale proposed is aligned to the timescale of the Extended Producer Responsibility, due in a phased approach from Oct 2023, with plastic film up to 2027 in some instances and some exemptions up to 2030, eg where there are fixed contracts for unsuitable machinery.

London's plans for Recycling

The Mayor of London’s target for recycling is meet OR EXCEED 65% municipal waste by 2030 in the London Plan Policy SI7 (p365).

Under the GLA Act the Mayor of London has a legal duty “to produce a municipal waste management strategy. However, the Mayor is not a waste authority and it is ultimately the waste collection and disposal authorities, businesses and the commercial waste industry that will implement the waste policies in this strategy in collaboration with the Mayor.” (Environment Strategy p253) The Mayor works with ReLondon (previously LWARB) to promote good waste practices.

The municipal waste strategy is tracked by the Reduction and Recycling Plans (RRP) that each Borough and Waste Authority has to submit. They are held here.

Haringey's Recycling plans

The Haringey’s Reduction and Recycling Plan June 2021 report had a target for a recycling rate of 38% by 2022 (compared with 30.2% in 2018/19). However, the projected trajectory is not being met, so this is under review. The draft plan notes that it “is presented in the knowledge that the GLA are commissioning an audit of Haringey’s approach to recycling, and our final plan will need to take account of this, the outcomes of recent national government consultation on waste issues (consistency, EPR, deposit/return) and Haringey’s overall budgetary position. We also note that the London Environment Strategy relied on incorrect data for Haringey resulting in unrealistic projections for recycling rates. “ This is close to the LetsRecycle 2019/20 recycling performance figure of 29.7% for Haringey.

The list of aims on Haringey’s dashboard worksheet is laudable. But here are some entries that will be of interest to Haringey residents:

The Contamination row plans “testing different communication and compliance measures and scaling up cost-effective solutions” with an expected impact column of “1% increase on rate by reducing contamination by 800T” The performance column notes that “Contamination levels have reduced from c.20% of collected materials to 15% since 2019” and the actions are to review next steps.

The Textile recycling row notes that textiles are “a contaminant that can cause bins or whole loads to be rejected” with a trial evaluation by end 2021.

The Veolia fleet collection arrangements row has “The fleet will be ULEZ compliant by 2021. This will mainly be achieved through EURO VI for larger vehicles and a combination of electric and hybrid for mid and smaller vehicles” and there is a Procurement row.” Also there is a row saying that the”vehicle fleet of ….. London Energy Ltd (LEL), and those of LEL’s subcontractors are currently transitioning to ULEZ compliance.”

The scope of the submission does not include the climate change or air pollution consequences of reduction and recycling, although some entries say that “CO2 reductions will be modelled”.

In particular continuing to procure EURO VI refuse trucks, rather than electric ones, with new renewable generation sources will build in dangerous air pollution for years to come, and cost much more as fuel costs rise.

Recycling from collection to processing

The gulf between the London target of 65% recycling by 2030 and the 30% achieved in Haringey is stark. The measures taken to promote and encourage recycling have had minimal effect in the past and there seems no explanation as to how it will have a maximum effect in the future.

The Government’s delayed legislation should have a significant effect on increasing recycling and thus reducing feedstock to be incinerated – but still huge volumes of potential recycling will be put out in black bags. Only mechanical extraction from black bags will maximise recyclables being recycled.