Agenda item

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“Relevant Background Information

      Members will be aware that, at the Committee’s meeting on 2nd December, a report proposing a response to a Department of Environment (the DOE) consultation paper on the revised EC Waste Framework Directive (WFD) was presented.

      At this meeting, it was highlighted that this was the first of two such consultations and was being undertaken to help the DOE decide on policies which would enable Northern Ireland to meet, in particular, the new provisions of the WFD.  The first consultation exercise focused purely on the policy proposals necessary to comply with the WFD and Member States are required to bring into force by 12 December, 2010 all laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with the WFD.

      The revised WFD’s objective is to establish measures ‘To protect the environment and human health by preventing or reducing the adverse impacts of the generation and management of waste and by reducing overall impacts of resource use improving the efficiency of such use.’  The recent revision of the WFD focuses on policy proposals covering issues such as:

·         the waste hierarchy;

·         producer responsibility;

·         separate collection of waste;

·         household recycling targets; and

·         waste prevention.

      This places a greater emphasis on the second stage of the consultation process which will focus on additional measures to transpose the content of the WFD.  It is probable that the issue of landfill bans will be raised in this stage.  It is worth noting that, presently, a consultation paper on the introduction of restrictions on the landfilling of certain wastes has been issued in England and Wales, which includes the prospect of banning the landfilling of certain wastes in future.  This consultation process closes in mid?June.

Key Issues

      In the report which was presented to the Committee on 2nd December, it was highlighted that, whilst it was too early to quantify the implications of implementation of transposing legislation, it was likely that there would be significant financial and other implications for the Council.

      Since this report, arc21 has been working diligently to determine what the impact of the revised WFD is likely to mean for its constituent councils.  The current arc21 procurement process was initiated to meet the requirements of the earlier EC Landfill Directive (LFD) and, against this background, arc21 has been paying close attention to the need within the WFD for every council to achieve 50% recycling by 2020.  It has produced a Waste Flow Model which considers what levels of recycling the region needs to achieve to meet this target as well as identifying what level each of the constituent councils has to achieve.

      Following discussions between arc21 and the Council regarding the Waste Data Flow spreadsheet for Belfast, it is apparent that the Council will need to take additional steps to secure further waste for recycling from its municipal waste streams.  This will mean that wastes which were previously scheduled for treatment and disposal in the facilities being procured to meet the LFD targets will have to be recycled instead. 

      The Council is affected comparatively more so than other constituent councils within arc21 due to our lower recycling rate.  Over the next couple of years, the Council will need to find new ways to engage more closely with the public to effect greater levels of behaviour and attitude changes and issue new contracts to target particular elements of the municipal waste stream specifically for recycling purposes.

      By way of example of the types of initiatives which we may need to adopt, Members will be aware that there are over 9,000 households on the black box recycling service which are currently on pilot kitchen waste collection schemes.  The Waste Management Service is reviewing the performance of these schemes but the requirements of the WFD adds further weight to the case for this service to be extended across the inner city. 

      The Council will continue to work closely with arc21 to determine the next steps which the Council will need to take to fulfil the requirements of the WFD and when and, with this in mind, a report will be submitted to the Committee in the near future advising of the outcome of the review of the pilot food kitchen waste collection schemes.

Resource Implications

      There will be significant financial and other resource implications arising from the implementation of the WFD both in terms of letting and managing contracts. 

      However, it is too early at this stage to gauge what these costs would be.

Recommendation

      It is recommended that Members note the report.”

            The Committee adopted the recommendation.