Landfill windfall
15th June 2005
The Echo recently reported that Southampton City Council is now benefiting to the tune of a million pounds from credits earned through the joint Southampton - Portsmouth - Hampshire waste and recycling programme. That is good news indeed, and results from the Government scheme to bear down on waste being buried in landfill by giving each local authority a 'quota' for waste in landfill each year. Those local authorities that bury too much have to buy 'permits' from other local authorities that are doing well, and the Southampton / Hampshire consortium certainly is.
But the report also carried the news that the Council leader said that the benefit was 'short term' and would 'go back into the general pot.' I'm not sure either of those statements are right. By other estimates, Southampton could benefit by almost A MILLION POUND PER YEAR up to 2010, and possibly beyond that date. It does, perhaps put the debate about a few hundred thousands pounds for a continuing weekly collection which the Council said would halt the city's recycling efforts into some context!
Although it is right to be a little cautious, Southampton ought to be planning for something like this amount of money to come in. And planning means deciding where to
put the income. The right thing to do, I think, is to invest it in new and extended waste and recycling facilities. Even though far less of Southampton's waste is going into Landfill than in most other parts of the country, we are still between us producing far too much waste, and it is still increasing. To continue to make progress we need to stay ahead of the game and Southampton will continue to receive landfill trading scheme income if it does. This means, together with Portsmouth and Hampshire, looking at how this money can be used to do better on waste minimisation and recycling.
Three to five million pounds would go a long way to set up better recycling facilities, perhaps work with major food stores in the city to capture and return packaging, develop local composting facilities, or perhaps even introduce a rebate scheme to encourage householders to put as much recyclable waste out for collection. How about it, Southampton?
Alan Whitehead