LARAC has submitted its response to the consultation on expanding the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) laying out a list of requirements to help mitigate the risks to UK local authorities.
Whilst LARAC is broadly supportive of including the waste sector within the ETS, the challenges must be mitigated to ensure the best possible outcomes and avoid it becoming an unavoidable expense passed down to local authorities. This is especially important at a time when local authority finances are severely stretched across multiple areas.
Local authorities have a duty to collect waste from households but have limited enforcement powers to ensure correct resident behaviours when it comes to household waste and recycling. Combined with the additional burdens that require increased volumes of household waste, most notably those containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs), to go for high temperature incineration, this limits what local authorities can do to change the composition of residual waste being sent for incineration. Ineffective rollout of the scheme expansion can also carry unintended consequences, such as a greater use of domestic landfill or Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) export.
To help safeguard local authorities from these issues, LARAC is recommending the following:
1.Relevant ETS costs are covered by Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR).
As the primary influencer on the recyclability and/or carbon emissions of packaging at its end of life, producers should bear the increased incineration cost. This will help to support decarbonisation by incentivising producers to reduce the plastic content of their packaging.
2.New Burdens Funding.
Local authorities must receive New Burdens Funding to cover the increased costs for the management of waste as a result of the expansion of ETS, which - combined with the requirements placed on local authorities as a result of other policies being introduced - will significantly increase financial pressures on local authorities in the short term and, prior to the full implementation of EPR, will create a financial shortfall for councils.
3.Successful implementation of the Collection and Packaging Reforms (CPR).
UK Government must ensure that, if the expansion of ETS is to happen by 2028, the implementation of all aspects of the CPR takes place to current timelines. Simpler Recycling, and similar policies in the devolved nations, will help to capture more materials, particularly plastics and food waste, in the recycling and recovery streams and divert it away from incineration.
4.Expansion of EPR to non-packaging items.
Currently, the cost of collection and disposal for a significant portion of the municipal waste stream will not be covered by EPR. As such, LARAC would like to see the EPR scheme expanded to cover a number of additional items, including (but not limited to) textiles and absorbent hygiene products (AHP), to ensure these sectors pay for the management of their products at the end of life, and are also incentivised to increase their products recyclability, reusability and ultimately to decarbonise.
5.Clarification on the use of funding.
It is understood that the funds generated through the inclusion of the waste sector in ETS will go to HM Treasury and not be ringfenced or directly reinvested in the sector.
LARAC would like to see the money used in a similar way to that in Germany, where its scheme reinvests around 90% of the funds generated in decarbonisation projects. This could help local authorities directly but also develop the costly carbon capture technologies required for Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities.
Cathy Cook, LARAC Chair, commented:
“Including the waste sector in the ETS is a step in the right direction for decarbonisation.
However, it is crucial that the financial burden does not directly or otherwise, fall onto local authorities who are already under significant financial pressures and have limited mitigation opportunities.
Our recommendations aim to ensure that the scheme is implemented in a way that supports local authorities while decarbonising our sector.”
LARAC’s full consultation response is available on the website for members to view.
Ends.
For further information please contact Tom McBeth, Policy Officer, 01982 382650 / admin@larac.org.uk
Twitter/X: @LARACspeaks
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