Making waste work: making UK national solid waste strategy work at the local scale

Abstract

Waste management policy is fast becoming a major social and political issue around the globe. However, little work to date has been carried out on the ways in which local government are responding to the new waste management agenda being set by the EU and UK. This research is investigating the adoption of national Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) policy at the local level and the barriers that exist to its progress and the development of MSW technology and practice, using the data from a national survey of English waste management authorities (67% response rate). Local practices are clearly a response to a number of key parameters operating on a local authority, including: availability of landfill, relative costs of MSW management options, funding and staffing levels (political bias) and historical trends in the management of waste (existing markets and processing facilities). Currently 40% of authorities in England are experiencing a policy implementation gap, with 70% claiming to suffer from local implementation failure; with costs of options, staffing levels, local government cut-backs and the introduction of privatisation being cited as the key reasons for failure. Clearly a policy implementation gap is being experienced throughout the UK, with certain regions experiencing more acute implementation problems and practical difficulties than others, and the reasons and implications of this will form the core of the discussion. It appears that in the UK, administration at the local level is inadequate to manage the general policies proposed, identify and collect the relevant data and ensure the successful implementation of MSW management. This failure is in part due to the decentralisation of waste management issues to local authorities, without substantive budgetary additions (a common problem following privatisation), resulting in local activity remaining distinct and isolated from national strategies, causing significant implementation problems. Clearly, further work needs to be carried out into policy development and implementation processes with relation to solid waste management to ensure that where feasible movement of practices are encouraged up the hierarchy towards recovery and minimisation.