WRAP seeks consistency work

Resources charity WRAP is encouraging more local authorities in England to explore the business case for greater consistency.

WRAP has said that it is keen to work with ‘more urban authorities, where we know achieving consistent service that deliver high recycling can be even more challenging’.

It is looking to work with councils or waste partnerships planning to tender collection contracts in the next few years, emphasising that ‘working towards consistency doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once’.

The consistency framework is part of achieving a WRAP and Defra-supported vision, where every household in England can recycle a common set of dry recyclable materials and food waste.

Other areas include by 2025 having an ambition to have packaging designed to be ‘recyclable, where practical and environmentally beneficial, and is labelled clearly to indicate whether it can be recycled or not’.

In 2016, it was announced that WRAP had allocated £1 million of its Defra funding to provide fully funded support to local authorities in England that wish to assess the business case for greater consistency in their area and ‘explore the opportunities it could bring’.

To date, WRAP has supported 64 local authorities and is looking to provide support for more.

WRAP claims that greater consistency could result in 11.6 million tonnes of materials and food waste collected for recycling over eight years, which would increase household recycling rate buy 7 per cent. And consistency could save reprocesses £33 million in costs of contamination.

Steve Read, former managing director of SWP, said: “Operating the same service across the whole county simplifies things for residents, elected members who represent them and the contractor who delivers the service.”