A pivotal moment for local authorities

Resource Futures’ director Gwen Frost considers the pressures that local authorities are under with budget cuts and new regulations coming in, and suggests how they can adapt their operations to meet new requirements and bring down unnecessary costs.

What are the most pressing issues that local authorities are currently grappling with around waste and recycling right now?

The issue most concerning local authorities at the moment is probably Simpler Recycling. If they don’t currently provide food waste collections than that will certainly be the biggest challenge on the horizon; it is quite an extensive service to deliver and the new burdens funding, from what we’ve seen at the moment, doesn’t cover the true costs of implementation.

As local authority revenues are still unknown – and given they are cash-strapped right now – Simpler Recycling imposes some quite beefy requirements for some local authorities to deliver on.

Looking beyond that, the other requirements of Simpler Recycling have been diluted to a certain extent, as you can still offer co-mingled dry recycling, therefore that covers the methodology requirement. The second concern is the number of materials that have to be collected, there is some national variation on the ability to collect and recycle some materials: namely pots, tubs, trays and cartons, which not all authorities currently collect. Further along the horizon is the need to add film recycling in 2027.

With all these service requirements coming into force, there is little time before March 2026 to prepare to deliver a new service (and the mobilisation, procurement and everything else associated with that).

Beyond Simpler Recycling, there is the introduction of both EPR and DRS: these will have a significant impact on the materials that local authorities collect and how they manage these materials.  Right now, there are many unknowns in terms of how that will change material composition and material values for local authorities.

What is top of the to-do list for local authorities in terms of ensuring they can comply with these new directives without harming their existing operations?

I think they must look at it as an opportunity to simplify – but also as an opportunity to bring together their collection services and deliver the best possible value. By making sure they collect all these materials for recycling and ensuring residents are engaged, this becomes an opportunity to substantially reduce residual waste, as a lot of materials can then be diverted into the recycling stream.

For example, from our experience undertaking waste compositional analysis, where food is not collected separate up to 40% of residual waste can be food; taking this out means a huge reduction in what is left as residual. By collecting food, authorities will see savings and efficiencies in their residual waste collections, both in the volume and tonnage that they are collecting as well as the diversion of those disposal costs. There is therefore an opportunity here, when bringing in food waste collections to also introduce a restriction in the residual waste volume, supporting the business case for the introduction of additional services.

All things considered, this is a positive opportunity for local authorities. If a local authority is suddenly only covering the costs of 60% of what they currently would produce as residual waste, then that is a massive saving. These are the opportunities that authorities need to look at and bring to fruition to reduce residual waste services and to supporting the financial balancing of the books.

Obviously data has a huge part to play in understanding what is coming in, what is going out and what is being diverted from residual waste. What does data collection offer in terms of helping local authorities to find solutions to these challenges?

Ultimately you can’t do any of the above if you don’t have the data around it. You need to know what you’re collecting – your waste composition, the efficiency of your current collections, what opportunities exist for diversion in terms of where materials will go, and what value you can get for these materials – as without this data you can’t properly review the service and investigate (and demonstrate!) the future savings and efficiencies that can be made.

Everybody goes on about needing data but it really is what everything is built upon. It is useful just to identify what data you already have to start off with, and then use that to analyse and understand the data gaps that exist to find out what else needs monitoring, what additional information is needed, and how best to progress. It really is critical to everything.

How can you then use this data to build better services going forwards?

We will often support local authorities on options appraisals. As part of this, we use our model to rebuild the existing service in terms of the available data – so the tonnages processed, the vehicles and resources used, as well as the outputs generated. This assesses the effectiveness of your current services and helps identify the efficiencies that can be achieved alongside changes.

This allows us to evaluate the current service offering in terms of efficiencies – for example, highlighting if vehicles aren’t being used to full capacity. We can then scale this up to see what happens if this was maximised, as well as factor in what to expect if food waste is diverted elsewhere – to show how certain changes would play out and identify what resources that authority would need at the end of it.

We then look at several scenarios in terms of material diversion, collection methodology, efficiencies of vehicles and resourcing etc… to find the optimal outcomes in terms of vehicle and resource savings.

And as well as savings and efficiencies, this kind of insight would help authorities be better equipped to meet the new challenges and directives coming in.

Yes – you can also look at scenarios in terms of the materials you manage and which will potentially be impacted by DRS, EPR and/or Simpler Recycling. If you balance that out with the incomes that you’re likely to see (or not see) on some of those materials, this could bring you the efficiencies you need.

We’ve had a change in government over the past few months. With a new government in place what additional changes do you see coming on the horizon?

Who knows? I think the new government will want to make their own mark. We still haven’t had any concrete decisions in terms of Simpler Recycling and the exact requirements there. There are significant differences between the Welsh and the English system at present and the Wales is governed by a Labour majority, will see that level of commitment to a circular nation here in England?

We’ve certainly seen a commitment to circularity, such as the last coal plant being turned off and their promises around zero carbon energy. Will they carry that attitude through into the waste sector and want to commit to zero waste, or to developing the circular economy?

England’s recycling rate has just dropped again so significant changes need to happen. It is really about how do they decide to do that: will it be a carrot or stick approach? The new burdens funding hasn’t supported the delivery and roll out of food collections, and I know that authorities are really struggling with those costs as a result.

The impressive improvements that happened in Wales happened because the Welsh Government supported them. Is that what’s needed in England and, if so, how do we get there?

How do we drive that change, and is Simpler Recycling the right way? Or do we listen to some of the responses that came back from the consultation in terms of recycling, in terms of frequency reductions, and that push that came from both local authorities and industry to drive change in terms of reducing residual volume, frequencies, consistency and that kind of thing?

Wales offers an example within the UK of a Labour administration achieving some very impressive results around recycling, reuse and repair; meanwhile, the other areas the UK are lagging behind. How do we join that up and make it so that there is a more consistent rate of reuse and rate of recycling across the UK, rather than each region being totally out of sync with each other?

I think there needs to be commitment as well as investment. There must be investment into driving the circular economy, into things like Benthyg – the libraries of things that have been set out through Wales. It must be funded to allow it to becomes the norm and the established practice because these things are so difficult: they are community driven, ground level pieces of work that need support.

When local authorities are under such scrutiny and funding cuts then it needs a national picture. It’s coming back to this consistent message: that you have this circular economy, you have this push towards reuse and repair.

There was a very good example when I spoke at the Welsh Senedd recently: that it needs to become the norm that you fix your washing machine as opposed to buying a new one. There is a cost to this but we need to ensure that it’s still cheaper than replacing your washing machine. These steps towards circularity need to be fair and affordable.

We’ve become accustomed to the idea that we fix our cars or houses; we just don’t buy a new one when something goes wrong. That needs to trickle down: whatever the value of that product is, how can we repair it? How can we make repairing products easier, and ensure the right to repair is accessible to all?

the governance or the need is not powerful enough for us in the UK right now, so how do we strengthen the want? If it’s not coming down through legislation, then how do we shape our manufacturers, designers, producers and community work around these principles?

It’s a case of just enabling things to stay working, ultimately, and being prepared to repair them. It’s critical to not make it a niche and something that everyone in the community sees as a valuable resource – ensuring that the repair cafe isn’t only open on the third Saturday of a month that you’ll forget – it needs to be a regular, reliable event with resource invested into.

Things don’t break according to a set schedule; it often happens when you’re using it and you might need to use it before the next available repair café is next on. We need to have these facilities available for everybody to be able to access, and not dependant on the availability of enthusiastic and qualified volunteers that enable these services.  It will make a huge difference in terms of preventing items being needlessly thrown away.