271
As well as the waste reduction targets, Welsh measures also promote source segregation of materials for recycling, and there is a target of 70 % recycling of municipal waste by 2025. The existing Sustainable Development Duty is being given
greater force through the forthcoming Environment Bill, with a requirement to
make it an ‘organising principle’ which is given force through reporting requirements. All these measures are felt to contribute towards meeting the waste reduction
targets.
The most signifi cant action highlighted in the English Waste Prevention Plan is
the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Sustainability Action Plan (ESAP). This
work is being led by the charity the Waste and Resources Action Programme
(WRAP) on behalf of UK governments and will help organisations that design,
manufacture, sell, repair, re-use and recycle electrical and electronic products to
work collaboratively across the product life-cycle. ESAP will stimulate action
across fi ve themes: extending product durability through design and customer information; minimising product returns; understanding and infl uencing consumer
behaviour on product durability and reparability; implementing profi table, resilient
and resource effi cient business models and gaining greater value from re-use and
recycling. By November 2014, over 50 organisations from across the UK electrical
sector had signed up, including Argos, Beko, Dell, Ifi xit, LG, Microsoft, Oxfam and
Panasonic (WRAP 2015 ). This work forms part of WRAP’s wider plan for assisting
the transition of the UK to a more circular economy (WRAP 2014 ).
Overall, however, it is fair to say that policy makers in all the UK countries are
only just getting to grips with what a circular economy might mean, and the opportunities it presents.
It is not easy to make national policy in this fi eld. As well as trying to infl uence
individual fi rms and householders to view their waste differently, and struggling to
measure fl ows of materials, implementing a more circular economy might imply
seeking to condition the entire economic system in three main ways:
– More centralised encouragement, even direction, of what infrastructure is needed
(including infrastructure for collection, sorting and repair/reprocessing of products and materials). Without such an overview and framework to provide some
certainties about the likely scale of the circular economy, it may continue to be
hard to mobilise private sector investment in the large number of new facilities
needed by a genuinely circular economy. None of the country plans suggest
going down this route.
– Making secondary materials a more cost effective option than primary. Sometimes
market conditions deliver this on their own, but where they don’t (often due to
the costs of reprocessing or other constraints on supply of secondary materials)
there is a case for policy intervention. The 2015 collapse of recovered plastics
companies after the fall in the price of oil illustrates this problem. The answer
could be through taxes on primary resources, or on non-recyclable products.
Alternatively, the incentive could be tax breaks (lowered VAT being the most
often mentioned) on products and materials that are more durable or recyclable.
13 Circular Economy and the Policy Landscape in the UK
As well as the waste reduction targets, Welsh measures also promote source segregation of materials for recycling, and there is a target of 70 % recycling of municipal waste by 2025. The existing Sustainable Development Duty is being given
greater force through the forthcoming Environment Bill, with a requirement to
make it an ‘organising principle’ which is given force through reporting requirements. All these measures are felt to contribute towards meeting the waste reduction
targets.
The most signifi cant action highlighted in the English Waste Prevention Plan is
the Electrical and Electronic Equipment Sustainability Action Plan (ESAP). This
work is being led by the charity the Waste and Resources Action Programme
(WRAP) on behalf of UK governments and will help organisations that design,
manufacture, sell, repair, re-use and recycle electrical and electronic products to
work collaboratively across the product life-cycle. ESAP will stimulate action
across fi ve themes: extending product durability through design and customer information; minimising product returns; understanding and infl uencing consumer
behaviour on product durability and reparability; implementing profi table, resilient
and resource effi cient business models and gaining greater value from re-use and
recycling. By November 2014, over 50 organisations from across the UK electrical
sector had signed up, including Argos, Beko, Dell, Ifi xit, LG, Microsoft, Oxfam and
Panasonic (WRAP 2015 ). This work forms part of WRAP’s wider plan for assisting
the transition of the UK to a more circular economy (WRAP 2014 ).
Overall, however, it is fair to say that policy makers in all the UK countries are
only just getting to grips with what a circular economy might mean, and the opportunities it presents.
It is not easy to make national policy in this fi eld. As well as trying to infl uence
individual fi rms and householders to view their waste differently, and struggling to
measure fl ows of materials, implementing a more circular economy might imply
seeking to condition the entire economic system in three main ways:
– More centralised encouragement, even direction, of what infrastructure is needed
(including infrastructure for collection, sorting and repair/reprocessing of products and materials). Without such an overview and framework to provide some
certainties about the likely scale of the circular economy, it may continue to be
hard to mobilise private sector investment in the large number of new facilities
needed by a genuinely circular economy. None of the country plans suggest
going down this route.
– Making secondary materials a more cost effective option than primary. Sometimes
market conditions deliver this on their own, but where they don’t (often due to
the costs of reprocessing or other constraints on supply of secondary materials)
there is a case for policy intervention. The 2015 collapse of recovered plastics
companies after the fall in the price of oil illustrates this problem. The answer
could be through taxes on primary resources, or on non-recyclable products.
Alternatively, the incentive could be tax breaks (lowered VAT being the most
often mentioned) on products and materials that are more durable or recyclable.
13 Circular Economy and the Policy Landscape in the UK