The fund is open to bids from English local authorities that wish to introduce, retain or reinstate a weekly collection service while demonstrating an improvement in environmental performance (for example, increased recycling rates) and value for money.

However, some local authorities have expressed concern that only those local authorities which already collect residual waste fortnightly will qualify, rather than those which are currently making or planning the switch.
Some have also said they were unconvinced by Mr Pickles’ claim that weekly residual waste collections would tackle ‘bin blight’.

Local authorities have been warned on a number of occasions that if they failed to meet landfill diversion targets, they could be fined millions of pounds. Currently, the fine would most probably have been passed on by national UK government to local authorities, if the EU was to fine the UK.

The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) has been used to ensure that councils meet their landfill targets and help the UK avoid any fines. But with most waste authorities meeting their LATS targets, concerns reduced and the scheme is in the process of being scrapped.

Now, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has opened a consultation on the issue which is based on a proposed policy statement for Part 2 of the Localism Act 2011.

The department said: “The Localism Act provides a substantial and lasting shift in power away from central government and towards local people. The Government has given public authorities more powers and freedoms to conduct their business and deliver services to the public. This includes a major reduction in the ‘oversight’ role of central government. Public authorities must, therefore, accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions or omissions.”

DCLG continued: “Part 2 of the Localism Act is about incentivising public authorities to comply with European law, in order to avoid any financial sanctions in the first place. The proposed policy statement sets out a fair, proportionate and reasonable approach for the use of Part 2. The statement has been developed with the Local Government Association and the Greater London Authority. The UK has never to date been fined for an infraction, and we hope that it never will.”

According to the consultation, costs would only be incurred by “those public authorities that had responsibility to comply, had demonstrably caused or contributed to the financial sanction, and had previously been designated under section 52 of the Localism Act for the infraction case in question. It is thought that, through the use of the provisions in the Act to incentivise compliance by public authorities, the risk of financial sanctions being allocated to the UK (and therefore the risk to public authorities) will be significantly reduced.”

This represents a two percent rise compared to the same time the year before, with a 360,000 tonne fall in the amount of waste produced, and a 1.2 million tonne drop in the amount of waste sent by local authorities to landfill.

Recycling Minister, Lord Taylor announced the increase and said: “Over the last ten years recycling has become part of our daily lives. We’re recycling more than ever before, which means less waste is now being sent to lie rotting in landfill.”
The East of England had the highest average household waste recycling rate at 49.06%, and London had the lowest at 32.09%.

Joanne’s award was under the sustainability category. The presentation was made by Caroline Levitt, Head of Procurement with the statement: “WasteCare – for Joanne Cahill really making a blinding effort, above and beyond the call of duty, to reduce the number of store non-returners ensuring compliance and managing this account like no other – well done!”

In addition to this, the number of non-bottle plastic recycled almost doubled from 40,000 tonnes in 2009 and 76,3000 in 2010.

Although the headline figures look positive, Recoup warned that plastic recycling was slowing. “The Recoup survey data suggests that bottle collection rates over the next five years will struggle to meet the burgeoning demand for material, while the non bottle collection rates will increase significantly, requiring urgent investment in sorting infrastructure, and further development of sustainable and auditable end markets for this fraction,” the organisation said.

In 2012, the normal 240 litre black bins will be replaced with a smaller 180 litre version. That equates to about one less bag of general rubbish every fortnight, the bin will fit about three black bags of waste.

To counter-act this residents are being given a further recycling bin (bringing the total up to three) for plastics.
Executive member for waste Gary Hopkins said the aim of the new £96-million contract was to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, and therefore reduce costly landfill taxes paid by the council.
He said: “This is the result of two years’ hard work and detailed planning and we are delighted it’s now ready to roll out.”

The rise would be staged over several years with a target of 45% of material to be collected by 2016 and 65% by 2020. However there is still some disagreement between the parliament and council over how the target should be calculated.

The committee met in Brussels last week and voted unanimously to endorse plans for the target to be raised. A number of other new proposals were also supported.
These included:

Consumers being able to hand in “very small” WEEE to all but the smallest electrical shops for free;

Setting higher recovery and recycling targets for individual items of WEEE – between 70-85% recovery goals and 50-75% recycling;

Setting a new separate target for 5% of WEEE to be reused;

Ensuring producers and consumers should bear the costs of e-waste, not the general taxpayer;

Doing more to cut out the “unnecessary administrative burdens and costs faced by companies”;

Tackling illegal WEEE exports to the developing world by shifting the burden of proof to exporters to prove that electrical equipment being exported to non-OECD countries is fit for reuse and not just waste.

A full plenary session of the European Parliament is now scheduled to vote on the plans in January 2012.

WasteCare has also joined forces with Veolia to provide Unilever a drum removal service. Once the Leeds trial is completed we plan to roll out to Unilever sites nationwide.

The agreed service will refurbish, recycle and promote the reuse of drums, barrels and IBCs. The collections are being carried out by the LogiCare team who operate our arctic fleet to ensure more efficient collections.

This partnership will ensure a greater amount of packaging waste avoids landfill and gets recycled or reused in the right way.