moving the dial?

“The Long-awaited Government Environmental Improvement Plan is disappointing and falls short” says Dr Adam Read, chief external affairs and sustainability officer for SUEZ UK recycling and recovery.

Read told SPN: “The Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan has been long-awaited, and we fully support its holistic approach. That said, whilst commitments to improve wildlife and people’s access to nature are the focus of the news headlines, our first look at the delivery plan for reducing waste and maximising resources has left us somewhat disappointed.

There is very little that is new in relation to the way we manage waste and resources in the UK – the delivery plan references the reforms to extended producer responsibility, consistent collections and a deposit return scheme that have been underway now for two years, and the new programme to maximise resources and minimise waste could well be a repackaged version of the draft waste prevention plan consulted on last year.

The material specific waste reduction targets are a step in the right direction when it comes to understanding and measuring the impact of policy reforms on our future performance, but still take a weight-based approach rather than looking at carbon impacts. We welcome the proposed call for evidence on a plan for moving remaining biodegradable waste out of landfill by 2028 and this needs to be progressed without delay, so that any guidance on how we make this transition is available in time to have an impact.

In the five years since the 25 Year Environment Plan was published, our ambitions have moved on – focussing on downstream interventions will only take the UK part of the way on its journey to a more resource efficient, decarbonised, circular economy. To truly move the dial, we need to re-think consumer habits and a potentially game-changing target for resource productivity was a notable omission from the document.

Some delays to the flagship policies to reduce waste and increase reuse and recycling as a result of covid were understandable, but we are now reaching a point where commitments to announce the detail of reforms ‘in due course’ are wearing thin and hampering investment in the infrastructure and services we will need to take the reforms from the page into real life.”