The European Landfill Directive and the Welsh Assembly Government’s Towards Zero Waste Strategy both have associated financial penalties associated with failure. This makes the delivery of sustainable waste management services one of the key strategic risks facing local authorities in Wales.
Funded by the Welsh Assembly Government the Waste Improvement Programme has been in existence since 2007. This followed a programme where all authorities underwent a ‘peer review’ of waste management services. Initially focusing on assessing services in Welsh local authorities and sharing good practice, work is currently targeted at supporting authorities in increasing efficiency of waste management activities. This includes the collection of financial data on waste and the benchmarking of cost variations to identify how services can be delivered at lower cost.
Key areas of work have included:
- ‘Routemapping’ existing and planned waste services across Welsh local authorities to assess compliance with medium-term targets;
- Delivery of seminars on food waste collection and treatment;
- Assessment into merits of different recycling collections involving authorities providing different services;
- Development and delivery of a consistent method for capturing financial data on local authority waste management services in Wales;
- Redevelopment and delivery of a benchmarking process to qualitatively assess collected financial data;
- Emerging work on joint procurement of vehicles, bins, bags, food waste caddies and liners, with the intent of realising; and
- Development of a project monitoring and evaluating participation in food recycling collections. Combining this information with Waste Awareness Wales to provide targeted communications to non participants and partial participants.
For more information contact: Emma Shakeshaft