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Plastic bottle deposit return scheme finally looks set to start in England

Posted on January 24, 2023 by dishanth

The launch of a long awaited deposit return scheme for plastic bottles in England is expected to be announced by the government.

Five years after Michael Gove first promised to bring it in, it is understood ministers will on Friday give the go-ahead for a deposit return scheme (DRS) that will not include glass, according to a report in the Grocer magazine.

The failure to include glass in the scheme, which was a manifesto promise, has been criticised by campaigners as a missed opportunity.

Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), which has campaigned for a DRS to tackle plastic pollution, said: “Whilst we should celebrate action being taken against the scourge of plastic pollution, this much delayed announcement on DRS appears a huge missed opportunity.

“The government has rolled back on its 2019 manifesto commitment to include glass, one of the most environmentally damaging materials. This is frankly nonsensical and puts England at odds with systems being introduced in Scotland and Wales, hindering UK-wide compatibility.”

The introduction of the deposit return scheme will not happen until 2024 – six years after it was announced by the government as a key environmental policy.

The delay has been criticised by SAS, which said it would result in an additional 16bn containers leaching into the environment, choking rivers and seas. “We demand greater ambition from government,” said SAS.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it would be making an announcement on Friday.

A DRS was first announced in 2018 by Gove, the then environment secretary, to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans. It came after years of campaigning and with a warning from Gove that it was “absolutely vital we act now to tackle this threat and curb the millions of plastic bottles a day that go unrecycled”.

The government’s manifesto promise in 2019 was to introduce a deposit return scheme to incentivise people to recycle plastic and glass and the first consultation was met with a high level of support for the scheme.

Across the UK, consumers go through an estimated 13bn plastic drinks bottles a year. Only 7.5bn are recycled. The remaining 5.5bn are landfilled, littered or incinerated.

Scotland’s DRS will begin in August this year and will include glass, plastic and cans. The public will pay a 20p deposit when they buy a drink that comes in a single-use container made of PET plastic, steel and aluminium, or glass. They will get their money back when they return the empty container to one of tens of thousands of return points.

Campaigners urged the government to reconsider the exclusion of glass from the English DRS. Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, said: “We are set to disincentivise consumer recycling of what would otherwise be perfectly recyclable containers like glass bottles.

“An all-in deposit return scheme across all four nations of the UK is the only way we will radically reduce our dependence on natural resources. We cannot continue to ignore the UK’s chronically low levels of glass recycling. We need urgent systems change that do not create perverse incentives in the market and leave our environment open to perpetual degradation.”

Source The Guardian

UK Government proposes £56bn investment plan to stop sewage discharges to water companies

Posted on August 29, 2022 by dishanth

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has today (26 August) published a Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan and opened consultations on the key measures included.

Included in the plan is a requirement for all water companies to significantly reduce – and improve the quality of – all storm overflows discharging into or near designated bathing water by 2035. Environment Agency data for 2021 states that untreated sewage was discharged into coastal bathing waters across England for a total of 160,000 hours, in 25,000 separate discharge incidents.

Water companies would also need to improve three-quarters of the overflows discharging into nature sites classed as high-priority by 2035. Companies would then need to address all other overflows by 2050 regardless of location. The idea of ending the practice entirely is considered, but Defra ultimately concludes that they will still be allowed when there is heavy rainfall and no risk of immediate, negative impacts on the environment.

“Overflows that are causing the most harm will be addressed first to make the biggest difference as quickly as possible, and water companies will be expected to consider nature-based solutions in their planning,” Defra has stated.

To enable the tracking of progress, the Plan sets out a commitment for all overflows to have working monitors installed by the end of 2023. The Liberal Democrats claimed this week they have evidence that sewage monitors installed by water companies did not work 90% of the time in 2021. Companies will be required to publish discharge information in near real-time under the Plan.

Overall, the plan states, water companies will collectively need to invest £56bn in monitoring, infrastructure, process changes and skills needed to reduce sewage pollution through to 2050. MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) have stated this is significant, as it will require the sector to double the average annual level of investment it has made since 1989. This is when the water sector was privatised.

The Plan stipulates that water firms must not pass these costs on to customers at a rate of more than £1 extra per month, for domestic customers, for the first five years of implementation. This will cover 2025 to 2030.

Rights, regulations and governance

The Plan goes on to propose several changes to the rights of water firms, how the sector should be regulated, and what governance mechanisms companies should bring in.

On the former, the Plan explores the possibility of removing mechanisms which give property developers the automatic right to connect to sewer networks. Water firms have long argued that this automatic right can result in sewer networks becoming overwhelmed, making the need to trigger storm overflows more likely. Should this change be implemented, a new ‘approving body’ would need to be created or appointed to oversee applications from developers.

Paired with this proposal is the possibility of subjecting developers to new standards for sustainable drainage systems. Additionally proposed are new rights for water companies to repair defective drains on private property.

On governance, the Plan proposes measures to ensure that water companies’ environmental performance is more closely tied to dividend payments. Much ire has been directed at water companies this summer for increasing profits and executive pay with little done by some to improve leaks and reduce storm overflows.

“The government supports Ofwat’s recent proposals which would provide extra powers for enforcement action against companies that don’t link dividend payments to their environmental performance, or who failed to be transparent about their dividend pay-outs,” Defra has stated.

Tough or toothless?

Defra has called the Plan’s targets the “toughest ever” in this space. But not everyone is convinced.

The Lib Dems’ environment spokesperson Tim Farron called the targets “flimsy” and claimed that the timelines were unambitious, not reflecting the need to improve bathing water quality in the near term.

Farron said: “This government plan is a licence to pump sewage on to our beaches and in our treasured rivers and lakes.

“This is a cruel joke. The government is going to hike water bills to pay for cleaning up the mess made by water companies. The same companies who awarded their executives multimillion-pound bonuses this year and paid out over £1bn to their shareholders. Whilst they roll in the cash, we swim in sewage. The whole thing stinks.”

Labour’s Jim McMahon, the Shadow Environment Secretary, said the document is “neither a plan, nor does it eliminate sewage dumping into our natural environment”. Like Farron, he called for more immediate action.

McMahon said: “Under the Government’s weak improvement ‘target’, based on last year’s data we’d face another 4.8m sewage spill events in our country between now and 2035.”

Elsewhere, there has been confusion about whether the Plan contains loopholes for overflows in some areas. The Marine Conservation Society’s water quality policy and advocacy manager Rachel Wyatt said: “Defra can’t provide a list to us of the storm overflows which aren’t going to included [in the targets] – which is ridiculous in itself – so these overflows could be discharging into marine protected areas, shellfish waters or other beaches which are not designated as bathing waters.”

Source Edie

Supermarket food could soon carry eco-labels, says study

Posted on August 10, 2022 by dishanth

Supermarket shoppers could soon be checking the environmental impact of food before putting it in their trolleys, thanks to new research.

Reliable information of this kind hasn’t been available.

That’s because UK manufacturers only have to list their main ingredients, and that’s by percentage, not amount.

Scientists have overcome the problem by using public databases to estimate the composition of thousands of food products and their impact.

Many consumers want to know how their weekly food shop affects the planet, even though rising prices will likely be a more immediate concern for most.

Prof Peter Scarborough from Oxford University told BBC News he hopes that the research leads to an eco-labelling system for customers, but he believes that the bigger impact would come if the food industry uses it to cut its environmental footprint.

He said the food industry has also been “crying out” for the new tool and that the algorithm is already being used by some manufacturers and caterers to make their meals more sustainable.

“It fills a huge gap. Manufacturers, caterers and retailers have targets for reaching net zero [emissions] and they don’t have the tools they need to get there.”

“Now they have this data, and some of them are talking to us about things they can do to help people move towards more sustainable food purchasing. The data could help manufacturers adjust their formulations.”

The analysis has limits. Ingredient lists don’t tend to show sourcing information such as country of origin or agricultural production method. But Dr Mike Clark, who led the research at Oxford University, called the tool “a significant step towards providing information that could enable informed decision-making”.

The Oxford team estimated the composition of 57,000 foods and drinks in supermarkets in the UK and Ireland. It then assessed the impact of growing methods, processing and transport, against key environmental measures including greenhouse gas emissions and impacts on nature.

The team developed an algorithm to calculate an eco-score for the environmental impact of individual food and drink products.

Catering firm Compass Group began working with the researchers in January.

Its Culinary Director for Business and Industry Ryan Holmes, told BBC News that use of the algorithm “made us think about how we approach sustainability within the workplace” as the company sought to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

He said the company took out some meat, increased proteins from other sources such as lentils and used more whole grains and vegetables and obtained a better score for many of its meal options for staff canteens.

Meat and dairy score high

Under the algorithm, the higher the score, the higher the environmental impact. As expected, foods containing more meat and dairy score much higher than those with more plant-based ingredients. By contrast, many meat alternatives such as plant-based sausages or burgers, had between a fifth and less than a tenth of the environmental impact of meat-based equivalents.

But there was also wide variation within specific categories.

For example, the highest-impact pork sausage scored about a third higher than the least impactful. And the impact of biscuits rose the more chocolate they contained, showing that small recipe changes could make big differences, according to Prof Scarborough.

“If you look at the government strategy on achieving net zero [emissions by 2050] around food systems, they are not measuring the actual greenhouse gas emissions, instead the recommendation is to reduce meat consumption.

“That’s OK, because meat has the biggest greenhouse gas emissions, but you miss a massive amount in multi-ingredient foods which had previously had no reduction targets based on them whatsoever.”

The food firm COOK is assessing whether eco-labelling would help its customers move to a more sustainable diet Source: COOK

COOK, a Kent-based frozen food producer looking to diversify away from meat, has also worked with the researchers. It wants to explore whether measures like putting eco-labels on its products would help customers embrace a more sustainable diet.

“The tool could help us by ensuring that as we are developing new recipes there is a delicious option for someone who is actively looking to reduce their environmental impact through what they eat,” said Andy Stephens, COOK’s head of sustainable food.

The researchers don’t foresee eco-labelling becoming compulsory in the near future. They want firms to adopt it voluntarily, something they believe would lead them to compete over the sustainability of their food and drink products.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs welcomed the initiative.

“We want to give everyone the information to make healthier, greener or more sustainable choices with the food they buy, if they want to. Voluntary industry schemes are really positive and through our Food Strategy we’re also looking at how we can better support them in future.”

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source BBC

DIY waste disposal will no longer incur charge under new plans

Posted on April 11, 2022 by dishanth

Households in England and Wales will no longer have to pay to get rid of waste created by DIY activities under new plans set out by the government on Monday.

At the moment, some local authorities are allowed to charge for the removal of waste such as plasterboard, bath units and bricks, but the proposed changes outlined in a technical consultation would stop this.

The move, which is part of a fresh attempt to crack down on fly-tipping, could save consumers up to £10 per individual item, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

The government banned backdoor charges for individuals disposing of household rubbish at waste centres in 2015. However, about a third of local authorities still charge for certain types of DIY waste, applying rules to residents designed for construction waste.

The environment minister Jo Churchill said: “When it comes to fly-tipping, enough is enough. These appalling incidents cost us £392m a year and it is time to put a stop to them. I want to make sure that recycling and the correct disposal of rubbish is free, accessible and easy for householders. No one should be tempted to fly-tip or turn to waste criminals and rogue operators.”

Local authorities handled 1.13m fly-tipping incidents in 2020-21, during the Covid-19 pandemic, up 16% on the year before.

New council grants totalling £450,000 will be awarded to selected authorities to help them fund a range of projects to catch fly-tippers in action or deter them from dumping waste in the first place.

Projects include the use of covert and overt CCTV cameras at hotspot locations; educational programmes to influence behaviour change; and a “no bags on the street” policy to prevent rubbish collections outside business premises.

Buckinghamshire council also plans to use artificial intelligence at fly-tipping hotspots, such as rapid deployment cameras and automatic number-plate recognition. These tools link the vehicles of fly-tipping suspects to the disposed-of items in real time, allowing investigating officers to track down culprits quickly.

The other councils set to receive the grant are Durham, Newham, Eastleigh Borough, Stevenage, Winchester, Dover, Thanet, Telford and Wrekin, and Basingstoke and Deane.

The government is also considering measures to make manufacturers of the most-dumped items – such as furniture and mattresses – responsible for the costs of disposing of waste created by their products.

Jacob Hayler, the executive director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), said he was pleased by the range of measures announced by the government to deter “this deeply antisocial, criminal behaviour”.

He said: “In addition to helping individuals recycle their household waste materials at HWRCs [household waste and recycling centres], of particular importance is stopping this material from falling into the hands of organised waste criminals, leading to larger-scale fly-tipping, which is why the ESA also strongly supports digital waste-tracking and reform of the licensing regime for carriers, brokers and dealers of waste material.”

Digital waste-tracking involves those handling rubbish recording information from the point the waste is produced to the stage it is disposed of, recycled or reused. It is hoped this will make it easier for regulators to detect illegal waste activity.

Marcus Gover, the chief executive of the sustainability charity Wrap, said: “Minimising waste is central to this, and the introductions of grants to reduce fly-tipping across England and Wales are necessary to help prevent the continual environmental cost of this illegal activity.”

Source The Guardian