ESA respond to party manifestos
Environmental Services Association
Jacob Hayler Executive Director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA) responds to the manifesto launches this week.
Although Labour’s position on recycling and waste occupies just three paragraphs of a manifesto exceeding one hundred pages, it is comforting to see that cross-party support exists for full-cost extended producer responsibility. This policy, currently proposed as part of Defra’s Resources & Waste Strategy, is a fundamental driving force towards higher recycling rates and a more resource-efficient, sustainable, economy, and will have a profound impact on the way recycling and waste services are delivered.
In its Green New Deal for Industry, The Green Party manifesto evokes the Circular Economy as its guiding principle, and also pledges to implement full cost producer responsibility. In addition, it targets product design standards but, uniquely, singles out vehicles and a range of common household items for improvement, aiming for better durability, repairability and energy-efficiency. Interestingly, it is the only party to set out an intention to encourage a societal shift of ownership model to goods as services, although the manifesto doesn’t say how this would be encouraged or incentivised in practice.
The Liberal Democrats promise a Zero-Waste & Resource-Efficiency Act to stimulate a circular economy, although their proposals seem a little piecemeal. The Liberal Democrats pledge to eliminate single-use plastics within three years; introduce deposit return schemes for all food and drink containers; achieve better product design for repairability and re-use; introduce legally binding targets on the consumption of natural resources; and introduce a statutory national recycling target of seventy per cent. However, it is not clear how these changes are going to be achieved or incentivised, or how these policies will make the UK less reliant on volatile global markets for recycled product.
We still await the Conservative Manifesto, but it is expected that they will continue on the current path set out in both the Resources & Waste Strategy and the Environment Bill, introduced weeks before the General Election was announced.
It would seem, therefore, that radical changes are on the horizon for the resources and waste sector regardless of the political colour of the next Government. ESA Members have promised to invest more than £10bn over the next ten years in the UK, but this is contingent on the right policy framework being in place and, whatever the outcome of the election, it is essential that the new Government provides our sector with confidence that these policies will be implemented without further delay.”
