SWR2A

Legislation Committee No 1

Response to the Consultation on the Proposed Shipment of Waste for Recovery (Community Involvement in Arrangements) (Wales) Measure

Additional comments received by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)

1.Article 55B(3) in the proposed amendments to the Environmental

Protection Act 1990 refers to representations being invited from the public on the appropriateness of the local authority’s actions "having regard to the proximity principle”. As I stated in my earlier response (in the answer to question 2), the proximity principle does not apply to shipments of (sorted) waste for recovery. It is only applicable to shipments of waste for disposal (and shipments of mixed (i.e. unsorted) municipal waste moving for recovery) - see Article 16 of the revised EU Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC). The phrase "having regard to the proximity principle” should therefore be deleted from Article 55B(3), since it is irrelevant to the shipments in question. I am not aware of any Welsh local authorities shipping mixed municipal waste for recovery outside the EU, since such shipments would need to be notified to the Environment Agency (unlike shipments of sorted municipal waste), and would be unlikely to be approved.

2.In this context, I would be grateful if the explanatory memorandum to the proposed Measure could be updated. On p.34, it states that "WRAP claimed that the proximity and self-sufficiency principles only apply to waste destined for disposal, and not for recyclate.” I’m not sure this should be stated as a claim by WRAP - it’s a matter of law. If your lawyers disagree with my reading of Article 16 of the EU Waste Framework Directive, I’d be very grateful if you could let me know as soon as possible. Otherwise, I’d suggest you replace the word "claim” by "pointed out”, since all I did was point out a detail of EU law, rather than "claiming” anything.

One point that I did not make in my earlier response, but feel I should make now, is that there does not seem to have been any cost-benefit analysis done on the proposed measure. I note that Part 2 of the explanatory memorandum consists of a Regulatory Impact Assessment. However, the estimates of costs given here do not seem to take account of the concerns on cost issues expressed by several of the respondees (e.g. WLGA, CIWM), even though they seem to be rather better placed to understand the likely cost implications of the proposals than anyone else. In addition, the Regulatory Impact Assessment, unlike a cost-benefit analysis, does not attempt to compare the estimated costs with some estimate of the benefits of the proposal. In line with Better Regulation principles, I would assume that any legislative proposal would only be approved if it was clear that the benefits outweighed the costs; this has not been demonstrated here, as far as I can see.

I would also note, in passing, that no footnotes or references are given to the rather sweeping statements in paragraph 8.1 in the explanatory memorandum. I imagine that many of those involved in legal exports of waste paper and plastics from the UK for recycling in China, for example, would very strongly dispute the assertion that the modern recycling facilities they deal with in China are "dangerous to the health of workers and people in local communities, and that children are often employed to process waste”. Perhaps some references could be added here, to document the evidence underlying these assertions.

Finally, I would note that the reference in Article 55A(3) to the Waste Framework Directive is now out of date. The 2006 version of the Directive has been replaced by an entirely new version, published in the OJEU on 22 November 2008 as Directive 2008/98/EC. This is currently in the process of being transposed into UK law, and is the version you should refer to here.

Patrick Mahon
Policy Analyst
WRAP
Patrick.Mahon@wrap.org.uk