July’s been a strange month… some legislative progress, or the illusion of it, along with some positive visits across the country.
Early in the month, I took time off to go to Hyde Park to see Van Morrison, Cat Stevens and Neil Young. Musically and experience wise, fantastic, and I would encourage anyone and everyone to go out of their way to see any one of them. But, keeping on topic, ‘disheartening’ is probably the word to describe the scenes towards the end of the night as Neil Young bellowed out “save the planet for another day”, ‘Love Earth’ plastered on the stage, and yet mountains of food trays, aluminium cans and plastic cups left on the ground. It really highlighted the challenges in addressing the disconnection between thoughts and actions, particularly when there are no consequences to these behaviours.
For What It’s Worth (reference intended), credit to the event organisers, with litter pickers doing the rounds and staff on bins directing what to put where. But, on this scale, it’s hard to know what would prevent the issue rather than simply tidying up afterwards.
Back to work, I was invited to speak at LARAC’s Yorkshire & Humber regional meeting. Fantastic to meet the members and hear about their challenges. The LARAC Wales conference followed at the stunning Parkgate Hotel in Cardiff. A brilliant day of engagement with our Welsh members and presentations on the excellent progress Wales continues to make as the UK’s top performing nation for recycling.
There have also been site visits! The Royal Mint in Wales showcased how they have adapted their processes from producing coins to extracting gold and other precious metals from circuit boards to recycle into high value jewellery.
RecycleEye and Tetra Pak invited us to visit their facility in London to see the technology available to assist in sorting cartons at MRFs. An interesting look at what’s available ahead of the mandatory collection (in England) of these historically challenging items for recycling.
Policy has also progressed. Kind of.
Local authorities received their latest packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) payment letters. Safe to say, feedback was mixed, with some (particularly Scotland) seeing significant changes to the amounts they were quoted at the end of 2024 – some over 30% less! There’s also still a lack of clarity on the expectations of how this money should be spent, and what guarantee there is terms of future amounts.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) also issued its response to the Emissions Trading Scheme expansion: waste consultation that took place in summer 2024. Partially. An interim response focusing solely on the voluntary reporting period starting in January. LARAC’s press release responding to this can be read here as we wait for further details on how local authorities will be safeguarded against the huge costs ETS will bring.
We also responded to HM Treasury’s consultation on Reform of Landfill Tax (England & Northern Ireland) and shared an update on the Environment Agency (EA) consultation on Waste batteries: appropriate measures for permitted facilities (England).
As we’re now into summer recess across all four nations, we can expect a period of relative political silence, but rest assured at LARAC our work and engagement will continue!
