Depending on which part of the UK you live in, hopefully some of you will have had a well deserved break from work last week because of the half term holiday.
However, for those of you (like myself) that continued to work, it was a good opportunity to get through some emails whilst it was a bit quieter! And I think I will need that time, as the next few weeks are busy with conferences. In particular, I’ll be speaking at the ESA Conference on 22nd February and the Food Waste Conference on 9th March, so I’m looking forward to hearing about some key topics and getting involved in some interesting debates.
A couple of weeks ago I presented the LARAC webinar ‘Policy Update – Collections and Packaging Reforms’ which focussed on the recently published DRS response from government.
We covered many questions and issues that have been raised by the response, and we are working hard behind the scenes in LARAC to prepare these into a lobbying piece to present to DEFRA, and start to get some further clarification for members.
If you missed the webinar a recording can be found here
Last week, the Government also published legislation confirming that residual waste volumes (in England) will have to be halved by 2042 based on 2019 figures.
Of course, this is excellent news for those of us promoting recycling, however, it once again raises the opportunity of promoting the top of the waste hierarchy, which has historically gained less attention – although this is definitely seen a turnaround over the last few years.
It is disappointing that the Collection and Packaging Reforms (CPR) missed opportunities to focus on waste minimisation, reuse and repair, however there is still a huge amount of activity going on out in the global community, focussing on these circular economy projects.
These are gaining more and more traction, and hopefully the publication of this legislation by the government will provide more backing for Local Authorities to work more within this arena.
For those of you who are new to waste minimisation and reuse, and want some good examples of projects, why not post something on our discussion forum here
This is an excellent way to share good practice and get in touch with other members who are in a similar situation to yourselves and want to get information without having to ‘reinvent the wheel’.
There are no silly questions! So anything you would like to know, please use the forum, as its an excellent resource for keeping in touch with the other LARAC members, which number over 300.
If any of you are attending any conferences that I am speaking at over the next few months, please come and say hello – I’d love to engage with you.
