Agenda item

At the Environment Select Committee meeting held on 25th October 2016, a report was considered which provided an update of the council’s Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy 2006-2016. It was discussed at this meeting that a new Strategy would start to be developed in 2017 and that elected members should have a greater role in the early development of the new strategy.

With this in mind, member workshops were scheduled for discussion of key waste management challenges and the future of household waste and recycling services in Wiltshire. A report was presented to the Environment Select Committee on 19th September 2017; this report provided an update on emerging themes arising from the members’ workshops and these themes were used in the development of a questionnaire for public consultation.

The public consultation started on 4th September and ran until 14th November 2017. The report received by the Committee on 16^th January provided an initial overview of the results of the public consultation and identified the key themes emerging from the results.

The Committee to receive the Council's draft 'Waste Management Strategy' ahead of consideration and adoption by Cabinet and Full Council.

The Committee received a presentation and considered a report of the Director for Waste and Environment about the Council’s Waste Management Strategy.

The report set out the Strategy for comment ahead of its reporting to the Cabinet for consideration in advance of adoption by full Council. It provided an overview of the results of the consultation carried out in 2017, including a summary of all the written responses received during the consultation period. The report set out the key themes emerging from the comments, showing how they have influenced the development of the Strategy.

The Director for Waste and Environment explained that a) the Strategy is made up of three individual documents, i) the overarching strategy, ii) an annual performance review and iii) an annual action plan, and the following priorities were identified within the strategy, i) waste prevention, ii) repair and reuse, iii) recycling and composting, iv) energy from waste and v) litter and fly tipping. The Committee noted that the annual action plan set out the details of the actions the Council would take to meet the priorities, taking into account available resources, previous performance and any legislative changes.

The Director for Waste and Environment and Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Waste responded to the following issues raised and questions asked:

·         The Household Recycling Centres (HRC’s)increasing their operational hours.

·         Measuring the success of longer opening hours at HRC’s and determining increasing rates of recycling.

·         The future of reusing materials from HRC’s

·         The success of litter picking campaigns.

·         Engagement with voluntary groups through town and parish councils to help with regular litter picking.  

·         Potential for issuing fixed penalty notices to those offenders caught littering.

·         The need to enlarge a number of the HRC’s to accommodate the increasing demands for recycling.

·         Promotion materials about reducing waste.

·         Explanation of zero avoidable household waste.

·         The need to reduce waste and packaging materials related to on-line shopping.

·         The types of waste being received and treated at HRC’s, and how this would evolve over the lifetime of the Strategy.

·         The role of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust in engaging with schools to promoting recycling and waste reduction.

·         Future facility to accommodate and sort co-mingled waste.

·         Changing culture and attitudes towards littering and fly-tipping.

·         Comparing the effectiveness of recycling between segregation at source and mixed recycling.

·         Processing waste locally and the allocation of sites in the county.

·         The dependency on a single supplier  for recycling and energy recovery and the Council’s ability to determine its own strategy and implementation.

·         Concerns regarding the usage of gasification/incineration requiring plastics and food waste to function, rather than radically increasing recycling.

·         The local impacts in terms of health risk and increased congestion on our roads through importing waste from outside the county.

·         The increase in fly-tipping and its impact on the environment.

·         Collecting litter from trunk roads during grass cutting sessions.

·         Comparisons between the volume of waste being delivered to different HRC’s during each trip by visitors.

The Chairman thanked the Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Waste and the Director for Waste and Environment for their contributions at the meeting. It was suggested that the Cabinet Member, portfolio holder and Director provide a 6 month progress report, to include costs and outcomes against the Action Plan to the Vice-Chairman and Cllr Oldrieve at a private meeting, on behalf of the Committee.

Resolved:

i)             That the Environment Select Committee endorse Wiltshire Council’s Draft Waste Management Strategy.

ii)            That the Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Waste, Portfolio Holder for Waste and the Director for Waste and Environment provide a 6 month progress report to Cllrs Jones and Oldrieve.