SWR9

Legislation Committee No 1

Response to the Consultation on the Proposed Shipment of Waste for Recovery (Community Involvement in Arrangements) (Wales) Measure

Gwynedd County Council (This was received in the medium of Welsh and has been translated by the Assembly Commission)

Consultation on the Proposed Shipment of Waste for Recovery (Community Involvement Arrangements) (Wales) Measure

I refer to your correspondence dated 5 May regarding the above consultation.

A report on the consultation was presented to this Council’s Environment Scrutiny Committee on 11 June. Committee members expressed considerable disquiet about the Assembly’s decision not to translate the proposed Measure in full into Welsh. The Committee decided that it would not be in a position to comment on the proposed Measure without receiving it in Welsh.

I ask you to note this and to publish this as the Committee’s response to the consultation.  

The following are comments by officers regarding the Proposed Measure:-

There is no objection to the principle of making information about municipal waste recycling available more openly. However, the Assembly is asked to take the following into consideration:-

• In general terms, trade operates on a global scale, and the recycling industry is no different.

• The Proposed Measure could give the impression that shipping waste abroad for treatment is something that should be avoided. It is accepted that treating materials in close proximity to their collection point can be advantageous, but it must also be acknowledged that there are advantages to be had from being part of the global market for recyclable materials.

• An increasing amount of materials will be collected for recycling over the next few years. As such, there will be competition in the market for disposing of those materials. Care should be taken not to create an additional administrative burden for disposing of materials, thus making Welsh materials less attractive to merchants than materials from other parts of Britain.

• With respect to data that will be collected to respond to the Measure, there is some scepticism as to how detailed it can be. It is envisaged that merchants will not be able to produce data that will identify where materials from individual authorities have been treated, since merchants will be combining materials from different council areas when making storage arrangements and so on. Merchants can only report in the form of percentages.

• It must be accepted that the Measure will impose additional requirements upon local authorities in Wales. It is likely that authorities will use dozens of companies to recycle materials, which will entail collecting information from each one. The Assembly should meet the additional costs to local authorities of responding to the Measure’s requirements.

• Despite attempting to reduce the original number of requirements, the Assembly should look at the possibility of expanding the "Waste Data Flow” system to include information that would be needed to respond to the Measure’s requirements.

Please contact me if you need any clarification regarding the above comments.

Peter Eifion Evans
Senior Project Manager