Already we are approaching the end of February, but this year we have an extra day as it is a leap year. I wonder how many people think about this and plan to do something special with the extra day? I also wondered why the leap day is at the end of February and found out that it was Julius Caesar who first introduced leap days in 45 BC. In the Julian calendar, February was the last month of the year which made it a logical month to add the extra day into.
We had our first Executive meeting of 2020 since my last Chair’s piece and that included a presentation from two new Waste Crime Engagement Specialists at the Environment Agency (EA). They are looking to work with councils more and want to set up joint campaigns and operations. Whilst we know there are already many good examples of joint working out there, this presents an opportunity for more engagement with the EA in all areas.
The Exec also discussed clinical waste, and how the collection of this waste varies across the UK. There has been a working group set up to look at this and shortly we will be surveying our members to see what the current situation is. In my day job at Pendle Council, we are starting to see our local GPs refusing to accept diabetic needle box returns, and so this is likely to impact on our expenditure and may even have to look at possibly charging for clinical waste collections.
I’ve also been down to London twice in the last month; for the LARAC UK conference planning meeting (yes - we start early!) and to one of the DEFRA stakeholders’ meetings on consistency. There will be more information on the DEFRA meetings released shortly in the separate briefing document exclusively for LARAC members. As well as planning the main UK conference (14/15 October), we have our usual Scotland (29 April) and Wales (8 July) events too, plus new for this year, one in Northern Ireland (11 June). More details will be available soon, but the three devolved government events are free to attend for all LARAC members.
As the media debates if we are on our third storm in as many weeks, the extreme flooding recently experienced has devastated many people and their homes and businesses. As well as a high number of insurance claims, the amount of waste arising from the damage is going to have an impact too, and will likely be a contributory factor in not meeting our 50% recycling target this year. Now we are no longer in the EU, we are unlikely to see fines imposed on the UK for missing the target and so we will be relying on our own legislation to help improve our recycling rates in years to come. That’s why we are keeping you up to date with the Environment Bill (briefing note sent 14 Feb to members) as this is the primary legislation required. I hope you find these briefings useful.
