For the shortest month of the year, February often brings with it more than its fair share of activity as we head towards the end of the financial year. With Simpler Recycling in England and other changes on the horizon, 2026 is certainly no different.
Firstly, despite the twist in place from some of the media, it’s great news to see that the majority of local authorities are on course for the rollout of food waste collections next month. Given the challenges in terms of finances, timescales and communication, the efforts by all local authorities to introduce these collections, sometimes completely from scratch, has been incredibly impressive and deserves far more credit than the media seems to want to dish out (pun intended).
After a long, long period of silence, the subject of Digital Waste Tracking has forced its way back onto the agenda. English and Northern Irish local authorities who have facilities that accept commercial material will be part of the Phase 1 rollout from October.
At the time of writing this, we are in the midst of discussions with DEFRA, the Environment Agency, and others, so expect an update in future editions of LARAC OnLine, and on the LARAC website. In the meantime, we encourage all UK authorities; collection, disposal and unitary, to engage with their contractors and explore getting involved in the open beta of the system from April.
Earlier this month, we engaged with our Northern Irish and Welsh members on their respective consultations, Rethinking Our Resources: Northern Ireland Resources and Waste Management Strategy and Amendments to Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging to cover street binned and littered packaging waste in Wales. We plan to have further draft responses shared in the next few weeks.
Other discussions that have taken place include Animal By-Product legislation and overlap with Simpler Recycling collections of food waste, hazardous waste, and the ongoing challenges facing the textiles recycling market. LARAC Members can read the meeting reports here.
Today (4 March) we held our webinar on AI That Actually Helps: Smarter Tools for LA Comms. Slides and recording will be available to members here, shortly. Whilst I haven’t had much chance to leave the laptop screen this month, I will be attending the National Food Waste Conference in London on 19 March, and CIWM’s Wales Resources Conference the following week. Look forward to seeing some of you there!
