Council agrees 70% of Eco Task Force's recommendations on Waste & Recycling

Last night Camden Council's Executive backed the majority of the Sustainability Task Force's recommendations on waste and recycling. That's great. Policies agreed include:

• Research into making sure our recycling practices are genuinely good for the environment and not just about increasing recycling rates
• A cost benefit analysis of a community composting scheme on one of our housing estates
• A pilot to collect food waste in one area of Camden instead of one general waste collection
• Research into creating electricity from food waste as part of the work started by the Task Force Report into Energy and Energy Efficiency
• A pilot to transform food waste into vehicle fuel – to my knowledge the first such pilot by a local authority anywhere in the UK
• A Camden Eco Centre - somewhere to show residents what energy efficiency or energy generation measures they can fit to their homes
• Waste minimisation as a procurement requirement for suppliers
• More work on improving the recycling experience through design and competition
• Officer time to lead a voluntary plastic bag ban – or a levy - in a one area of Camden
• The transformation of the Better Climate for Business scheme into a proper knowledge transfer system
• Recycling for businesses at a lower price than general waste collections
• Separated recycling bins (meaning different bins for different types of recycling) in mansion blocks and multiple occupation blocks
• A review of glass recycling

Here's what I said at the Executive last night about the five things I was still fighting for but which officers hadn't backed:

"Inevitably there are some things that officers have not backed that I think you should still support. The first is Zero Waste to Landfill. I think this has been misunderstood and that’s probably my fault. A Zero Waste to Landfill strategy is not a policy to carry out by 2010. It is partly a communications strategy but that’s not the key point. It’s a long-term policy framework against which to test policy initiatives and measure success. Camden’s Community Strategy says we aspire to being a low waste borough but how do you measure that? What does it actually mean? At least with Zero Waste to Landfill we know where we’re going and we can clearly measure progress towards that long term goal.

"The second is Street Swap Days, where residents in a particular community leave household items they no longer need but they think can be re-used on the pavement and we the council clear up any unwanted items at the end of the day. I was a volunteer at the Give & Take event at Somers Town Community Centre on Saturday. It was a huge success and much credit must go to Camden’s recycling dept for organising it. I don’t know how many tonnes were diverted from landfill but it was certainly a lot. However there must be a long term question mark over how often we can have six members of staff working overtime on a Saturday at events like that. Ideally the community would take on the responsibility for Give & Take, perhaps with an officer playing a guidance role, but maybe Street Swap Days are a cheaper way to achieve the same goal? They work in cities like Auckland and Toronto so why not here?

"The third is help to promote and develop Freecycle, the largest of the reuse websites. Our original thinking on this was that Camden should set up its own reuse website as Cambridgeshire did so successfully. But when we looked more closely we saw that Camden Freecycle was by far the largest local reuse website and that we would do better to promote them and help them to improve the user experience. That remains out view – the more so since Freecycle were the only reuse website at the Give & Take event on Saturday. We already promote them. Let’s do more of it.

"The fourth is Prosecution by Trading Standards of companies that blatantly over package. We have the weapons to do this under the 2003 and 2007 packaging acts. Officers prefer to use the carrot approach – to negotiate with companies. Great. Let’s carry on doing this but let’s use the stick as well.

"Finally we proposed a charge on garden waste collections because we believe green waste should be composted in Camden’s gardens not in Edmonton or Essex. But if you don’t accept the need for a charge then I would at least ask you to seek a review of current policy. We understand that only 6.7% of Camden householders with a garden actually compost. The national figure is 35%. Our current policy therefore needs rethinking."

You can see my full speech on the Council's webcam: http://www.camden.ukcouncil.net/site/#pp7779