The future of UK waste management
In response to the Audit Commission's 2008 report 'Well Disposed: responding to the waste challenge', Waste Watch suggests a three-pronged approach to help the UK meet European waste targets.
It's a rare example of environmental good news: the four-fold increase in UK recycling rates we have seen over the last decade means that one third of our waste is now diverted from landfill, a figure that seemed unattainable just a few years ago.
The best local authorities in the UK are now recycling or composting over half of their waste, so the national figure could increase even further. This is great news but as the recent Audit Commission report underlined, the UK is at serious risk of failing to reach European targets to cut the amount of waste it sends to landfill. So why, despite our recycling success, is this the case and what more must we do?
As with many environmental issues, things are never as simple as they seem. To cut down on what we send to landfill, we need a three-pronged approach that not only increases recycling and reduces the overall amount of waste we produce but, perhaps most controversially, also finds new approaches to how we deal with what is left over.
Encouraging people to cut the waste they produce is a much more complex communications and policy challenge than simply promoting recycling, which is a relatively simple message to convey. It requires fundamental shifts in not just 'at-home' behaviours, such as reuse and home composting, but also changing peoples' purchasing decisions and their fundamental attitudes towards consumption.
Communicating waste reduction messages properly and showing waste reduction as a normal part of everyday life are keys ways to change peoples' behaviour. However, this approach stands more chance of success if messaging is underpinned by actual policy changes which encourage and reward waste reducing behaviour.
Positive, clear communication is paramount in achieving such a shift in public understanding; for example promoting the benefits of Variable Charging (Pay-As-You-Throw) helps change perceptions of it as a stealth tax.
The final part of the jigsaw is the trickiest one: how to get a sceptical public to accept the construction of new waste processing infrastructure, including a high number of Energy from Waste plants. The need for this is greatest in the south east of England, which has just a few years of landfill remaining, but population density means this is where public opposition is likely to be the greatest.
Perhaps the biggest communications challenge for all involved in the waste industry is convincing the public that a waste solution which is expensive and will require building more plants in peoples' neighbourhoods is potentially the right, and possibly the only solution. Preparing the public for this will require a national debate on waste featuring a level of detail and openness that far exceeds anything that has gone before.
