January 2010 The Mayor’s Draft The Mayor’s Draft Municipal Waste Management Strategy Municipal London’s Wasted Resource Waste Management Strategy January 2010 The Mayor’s Draft Municipal Waste Management Strategy London’s Wasted Resource Greater London Authority January 2010 Published by Greater London Authority City Hall The Queen’s Walk More London London SE1 2AA www.london.gov.uk enquiries 020 7983 4100 minicom 020 7983 4458 ISBN 978 1 84781 329 9 Cover photo © Shutterstock Copies of this report are available from www.london.gov.uk Printed on 9Lives 80 paper: 80 per cent recovered fibre and 20 per cent virgin TCF fibre sourced from sustainable forests; FSC and NAPM certified. Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 7 Legislative and policy context ................................................................................................. 15 Chapter One: Current performance on managing London’s municipal waste ....................... 19 Chapter Two: Policies and proposals Policy One: Informing producers and consumers of the value of reducing, reusing and recycling municipal waste ............................................................... 29 Policy Two: Setting a greenhouse gas standard for municipal waste management activities to reduce their impact on climate change ...................... 39 Policy Three: Capturing the economic benefits of waste management .................................... 49 Policy Four: Achieving 45 per cent recycling or composting performance by 2015, 50 per cent by 2020, and 60 per cent by 2031 ................................... 59 Policy Five: Catalysing waste infrastructure, particularly low-carbon technologies ............... 73 Policy Six: Improving Londoners’ quality of life .................................................................. 84 Appendix One: Legislative framework for managing London’s municipal waste .................. 91 Appendix Two: Implementing the Mayor’s policies and proposals ...................................... 103 Appendix Three: The Mayor’s preferred approach: assumed waste flows and sources of waste ............................................................................................................ 113 Appendix Four: London waste authority recycling and composting collection services .... 117 Appendix Five: List of policies and proposals ...................................................................... 151 Glossary .................................................................................................................................. 155 4 The Mayor’s Draft Municipal Waste Management Strategy Foreword by Mayor of London, Boris Johnson London produces a massive 4 million tonnes volumes of waste produced in the first instance of municipal waste every year, most of which and support both practical and creative ways to comes from households and small businesses. reuse products as much as possible. This requires Too much of this currently ends up being a paradigm shift away from a throwaway culture buried for millennia in costly landfill sites or but this will liberate a significant portion of incinerated. Not only does this levy a heavy tax taxpayers’ money currently committed to dealing on our environment, it is also a massive missed with rubbish and reap considerable benefits for economic opportunity for the capital. the environment and offering opportunities for job creation. It does not have to be this way. This Everest of waste material provides a goldmine for us to Recycling levels in the capital are steadily plunder, a valuable resource which currently we improving with some boroughs achieving are simply chucking away. First of all we need to commendable results, but we need to do more. prevent as much of this waste being generated I want recycling to rapidly become much more as possible and then harvest the material that is a part of everyday life whether at home, on left to stimulate an income for the capital from the move or in the office. Not only should we the development of world leading technologies routinely recycle paper and cans, but also food to produce recycled materials, generate cleaner waste and plastics. Not all Londoners have a energy and to create green collar jobs. My level playing field when it comes to recycling ambition is to dig deep into this rich seam of facilities. I want everyone in London to be able potential, attracting investment and dramatically have easy access to recycling whether they live reducing the impact of rubbish disposal on our in the suburbs or inner London, in high rise flats carbon output. By 2025 I want London to be or multi occupancy buildings. sending zero of its municipal rubbish to landfill. We have to redouble efforts to make the Reaching these ambitious but essential recycling of waste easier than throwing it away. goals requires a radical re-focus. London’s By 2020, London should be recycling half of the waste management is complex, involving waste coming from households rising to 60 per many organisations. The current system can cent by 2031. I believe this can be done in part be unnecessarily confusing for Londoners. by the introduction of strong incentives - carrots These proposals show how we can develop a rather than sticks - to encourage residents to do coordinated approach to waste management in the right thing. London that will be both clearer for Londoners and more effective. The residual waste which cannot be prevented in the first place, or put to good use, will be Reducing and reusing a significant portion harvested to create greener energy and fuel. We of the material we currently throw away is an estimate the economic value of this to be more absolute imperative. We must drive down the than £80 million. By embracing clever, cleaner 6 The Mayor’s Draft Municipal Waste Management Strategy technologies, we can also develop a greater capacity to deal with London’s waste within our boundaries. These targets are challenging. They require robust action from everyone in London - those that generate waste and those with a shared responsibility to dispose of it notably the Mayor, residents, boroughs, waste authorities, industry and government. But the rewards are high. I want London to become the best big city on earth. We can only achieve this if we wisely manage the rubbish our lifestyles create and become a world leader in waste management. I look forward to hearing views on the proposals contained here. Boris Johnson Mayor of London Introduction The world of waste is changing. The past per cent) and Sydney (29 per cent), although 20 years has seen the public, private and third it is better than Paris (19 per cent). Recycling sector invest considerable amounts of time, performance is not consistent across all London money and effort into changing the way we boroughs, ranging considerably from the low think about and manage our waste. teens to the low fifties. However all London boroughs face challenges in providing good In 1989, London’s boroughs recycled just quality, convenient, cost effective recycling 2.1 per cent of the waste they collected. In 1999 collection services for flats and multi-occupancy they recycled only eight per cent. London’s buildings – which account for 50 per cent of boroughs now recycle 25 per cent. This is an London’s housing stock. Improving recycling impressive improvement – but still more can and rates from flats - currently around 10 per cent - should be done. Whilst we have been moving will therefore be essential to improving London’s away from a culture of waste disposal and recycling rates. indiscriminate incineration to one of recycling, we must now move to a culture of waste minimisation Reducing the amount of waste produced and and reuse, high rates of recycling and low- reusing waste that cannot be prevented presents carbon energy generation. With climate change the greatest economic and environmental a key consideration in what we do, the potential benefits for London. To continue to manage associated benefits in terms of carbon savings, waste by investing in expensive waste collection reduced energy costs, energy security, and jobs and treatment without an active strategy of creation are becoming ever more apparent. reduction and reuse is illogical. The Mayor will set out in this document what actions London’s London produces around four million tonnes of households and businesses can take to reduce municipal waste a year. Municipal waste is waste waste – but will also call on the government and collected by boroughs from households, litter industry to play a role. from streets and parks, and some of the waste from small businesses. The cost to London of The waste industry is also ready for change. managing this waste, including the collection, Increasingly there is a greater acceptance that transport, treatment, and final disposal we need to move away from traditional mass- activities, is approximately £600m every year. burn incineration of waste and towards the Although London’s recycling performance has use of cleaner, more efficient energy-recovery improved dramatically in the last 10 years we techniques, whereby any valuable materials still have a long way to go. London’s municipal are recovered from the waste stream and as recycling rate is the lowest of all English much