The following amendments have been selected: amendments 1 a 4 in the name of David J. Rowlands, amendments 2 and 5 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth, and amendment 3 in the name of Paul Davies. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected.

The next item on our agenda is the debate on municipal waste and recycling. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children to move the motion—Carl Sargeant.

Motion NDM6255 Jane Hutt

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Agrees that Wales is a world leader in municipal waste recycling and supports the intention for:

a) further initiatives to achieve the best overall sustainable development outcomes and the objectives of Taking Wales Forward

b) Wales to become the best recycling nation in the world.

Motion moved.

I thank the Presiding Officer. Members will be aware that Wales is a world leader in recycling and resource management. It was announced yesterday that we are now second in Europe and third in the world. This is thanks to a comprehensive package of Welsh Government policy and investment and the actions of local government and people across Wales.

The policy of England and Wales has diverged since devolution in 1999. In 1999, Wales recycled 5 per cent of our waste. This was broadly in line with England and Scotland. In the first half of 2016-17, we recycled 62 per cent of our waste. This was significantly better than England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England, recycling rates are getting worse and, last year, were under 44 per cent for the first time since 2011.

Today, I want to set out the agenda for building on this position to become the best in the world and to maximise the associated employment, economic and environmental benefits. Wales is on course to meet our 70 per cent recycling target in 2024-25, probably several years ahead of the schedule.

The 70 per cent target is, of course, a milestone on the journey to zero waste by 2050. In preparation for the revised Wales waste strategy in 2018, the Minister will publish shortly a consultation on our direction of travel in waste and recycling. This will include potential consideration of future targets, including setting an 80 per cent recycling target for local authorities.

The waste composition analysis published in June of 2016 shows that almost half of the rubbish people are putting in their residual waste bins is easily recyclable. This includes food waste, paper, card, glass and metals. Llywydd, getting as much recyclable material as possible out of our rubbish bins and putting them into recycling is one of the key objectives of this Government. If everybody put all recyclable material in the recycling instead of the rubbish bins, it would drive up the recycling rate to almost 80 per cent. It would also save local authorities money by avoiding the cost of disposal, and at least some of the materials collected can be sold to earn an income.

In 2015-16, the total spend on waste services by local authorities was at its lowest level since 2009-10 and, over the same period, recycling increased from 41 per cent up to 60 per cent. Higher recycling can contribute to reducing service-delivery costs, as long as the right services are introduced.

We continue to support local authorities to introduce the right kinds of services through the collaborative change programme. Technical support and capital funding is available to local authorities to help them plan and deliver changes where necessary. This exemplifies the benefits of the Welsh Government’s approach to recycling. Through the efforts of our local authorities and residents across the country, we’re reducing the costs, improving the environmental impacts, and increasing economic activity and the number of jobs.

To help achieve our ambition in this area, we are considering a range of other options—improving awareness raising on what can and can’t be recycled, work with people who do not currently recycle to change their behaviour, a more radical approach like deposit-return schemes and additional charges or preventing the use of single-use food and drink containers, and legislating to enable local authorities to encourage residents to put more of their recyclable material into their recycling and not in the rubbish bin. Local authorities have asked us to consider introducing these powers.

As well as higher recycling, we need to focus on waste prevention, Llywydd. Food waste per person is around 9 per cent lower in Wales compared to the average for the UK. Between 2009 and 2015, there was a 12 per cent decrease in the amount of household food waste in Wales.

I want to build on this performance and go further. The Minister has asked her officials to consider how we can drive up food-waste prevention across Wales in the home, in food processing and across the whole supply chain. There have been some calls from stakeholders to ban certain food or drink containers, apply levies, or bring in deposit-return systems for drinks containers. The Minister intends to give due consideration to these issues in the review and refresh of the waste strategy, ‘Towards Zero Waste’.

Will the Member give way?

I will.

Just on that point—and I’m very pleased to hear that the Government’s going to consider a deposit-return scheme—will he take into account, and the Minister, when she returns, take into account the fact that major companies like Coca-Cola have now dropped their opposition to a scheme like this?

I know the Member will be aware about the ministerial responsibility and she’s very interested in these schemes and is pursuing some further advice from her officials.

The Minister’s asked for a study on the potential for new legislation to extend producer responsibility in Wales and to make the producers of products and packaging more responsible for the costs of the end-of-life management of waste, including litter. High recycling rates are only part of the story and the Minister’s spoken many times of the need for a more circular economy for Wales to realise the benefits of being a high-recycling society. It is now time to take some steps to accelerate that process.

There are some materials in household rubbish for which there are not yet market solutions. We’ve already had successful programmes to secure new waste treatment services, such as anaerobic digestion and energy from waste, but we also need new collection and treatment options for a wider range of products like plastics, absorbent hygiene products, such as disposable nappies, and we also need facilities for hard-to-recycle item, such as carpets, mattresses and textiles. Again, the Minister has asked her officials to work with local authorities to look at how this can be achieved. They’re also looking at the opportunity to develop additional infrastructure to take advantage of changes in packaging and waste composition.

Many people in Wales shop online and have items delivered to their households in cardboard packaging. The Confederation of Paper Industries is the largest trade body representing paper and corrugated card manufacturing companies in the UK. It advises that the UK is the biggest net importer of paper and card in the world. One of the reasons is the lack of capacity to recycle paper and cardboard in the UK. The opportunity, Llywydd, exists to create additional paper manufacturing capacity to recycle this recovered paper and board into new products and create the much-needed jobs in the communities these projects would bring. Making sure these opportunities come to Wales is a priority. The Minister intends to announce in the future the measures she will take working with Cabinet colleagues to ensure additional infrastructure for us here in Wales. It’s against this backdrop and with great pride that today I move this motion.

I have selected the five amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on Gareth Bennett to move amendments 1 and 4, tabled in the name of David J. Rowlands—Gareth Bennett.

Amendment 1—David J. Rowlands

Delete sub-point a).

Amendment 4—David J. Rowlands

Add as new points at end of motion:

Notes with concern that recycling rates vary considerably across local authority areas in Wales, partly owing to differences in waste collection and recycling schemes used in each local authority area;

Regrets that there were 36,000 reported incidents of illegal fly tipping in Wales in 2015/2016, costing local authorities over £2.1 million in clearance costs;

Calls on the Welsh Government to ensure that local authorities collect residual household waste no less frequently than fortnightly, to protect public health, and deter fly-tipping.

Amendments 1 and 4 moved.

Thank you—diolch, Lywydd. I move the amendments tabled in the name of David Rowlands. We don’t support the Government today because we do have profound doubts over where they are going with their recycling policies and what the effect will be on householders.

We do support the Plaid amendment 5, but we will be abstaining on Plaid’s amendment 2, relating to the deposit-return scheme. This does seem to be a good idea in principle, but we believe that it needs further development, and there are some specific areas that would need to be addressed. For instance, how would it operate in the border areas, relating to the Wales-England border? In addition, the deposit-return schemes would place a considerable burden, potentially, on retailers, particularly small convenience stores. Indeed, the Association of Convenience Stores are concerned about various issues, including space for storage of returned containers, in-store delays and staff costs whilst handling returns, the cost of setting up the scheme initially, and the cost of transporting returned containers to waste-handling sites.

So, we are interested in a deposit-return scheme, but we would like those points to be addressed if the Government is going to go along with it, or perhaps from Plaid we will get some more details on those points. We will support the Welsh Conservative amendment 3.

Returning to our own position, the Government’s performance in meeting recycling targets is, in itself, very good, but we are worried by the apparent connection between pushing for zero waste by reducing waste collections and an increase in fly-tipping incidents. To relate recent incidents of that, in Conwy, there is currently a trial of four-weekly waste collections in part of the county borough; the rest of the borough is having three-weekly collections. Over the past two years of recorded incidents, fly-tipping has increased by 10 per cent. In the Gwynedd authority, we have had three-weekly collections in part of the borough since 2014, and, in the same period, of 2014-16, reported fly-tipping incidents were up by 22 per cent.

Will the Member give way?

Certainly.

I recognise the points that you make. Isn’t that an argument, though, for better enforcement, and for working with families to help them to change their behaviour, rather than simply saying we should abandon the push for greater recycling?

Yes, it could well be that there is a case for better advice given to householders, and if there is going to be some meaningful programme of doing that then we wouldn’t rubbish that policy. But I merely point out that sometimes good intentions can lead to worse consequences, so we do have to be very mindful of the fly-tipping problem, but I do appreciate the point you’re making.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

I listened very carefully to your contribution there in terms of the issue that you’re linking between fly-tipping and changes in collection. The Government doesn’t hold any data that would support that. Do you have data that supports that?

Yes, we—. I would have to look into that, but when I had a—. [Interruption.] Thank you, Joyce. To continue, when I had this exchange with the Minister responsible, Lesley Griffiths, we did actually have this difference of opinion over data. So, I apologise; I will look into it. I am being given data; I haven’t actually—. I can’t personally verify where it came from at this point.

Right. We do have therefore problems of fly-tipping in various areas. Okay, we’ve done that. Looking at Cardiff, we have had almost weekly instalments in the ‘South Wales Echo’ of admittedly anecdotal evidence, but there have been plenty of photographs that have been provided by concerned local householders in recent years pointing to their belief that fly-tipping has increased rapidly in the last couple of years. Recently, there has been a clearance of bushes on land around the main railway line that has revealed the huge amount of waste deposited illegally on this land over the past few years, and that didn’t become apparent until the bushes were actually cut back, and it’s quite a dramatic sight. Clearly, the so-called ‘zero waste’ policy is not leading to zero waste at all, and, indeed, it seems to be actually increasing the amount of waste that is illegally fly-tipped in Wales. In Cardiff, the Welsh Government’s policy has, in fact, been undermined by the Labour council’s decision to close down two of the city’s four recycling depots, which seems a curious way in which to try and achieve zero waste. So, I wonder what observations the Minister will have regarding that decision.

Over the past couple of years, Cardiff council has tended to hide behind the need to comply with EU waste recycling targets when they have been asked why the policies of waste collection are changing. They always say this: Bob Derbyshire, who’s in charge of it at cabinet level, he has always recited that they need to comply with EU waste recycling targets, but now that we are leaving the EU, we can ourselves, as a—. [Interruption.] Ah, okay, perhaps you can elucidate on that, but he is still claiming the need to comply with EU targets. We now have our own target of zero waste, so it’s not an EU target. So, we do need to consider the cost of slavishly adhering to very stiff targets. I think that we now need to have a good hard look at our own zero waste policy, and perhaps the debate today will help us to do that. Thank you.

I call on Simon Thomas to move amendments 2 and 5, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Amendment 2—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add at end of sub-point a):

'such as a deposit return scheme for plastic, glass and cans and a ban on polystyrene packaging.'

Amendment 5—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

In order for Wales to become the best recycling nation in the world, local authorities need to adopt best practice to increase recycling rates, learning from authorities such as Ceredigion where 68.1 per cent of municipal waste was recycled in 2015/16.

Amendments 2 and 5 moved.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I move the amendments. Even in discussing rubbish, I think we need facts. Generally speaking, Plaid Cymru supports the Government’s efforts to move towards zero waste. Indeed, our policy seeks to speed up that process, because we believe that we can achieve that by 2030 in Wales, and, in so doing, create jobs within the local economy and generate wealth from waste too, because there is always some value to waste.

Some councils in Wales are setting the pace. It’s true to say that Ceredigion is ahead, having reached over 68 per cent of recycling now, almost 10 years ahead of the target of 70 per cent that the Government has for 2025. We can therefore praise councils when they do make progress and say that they are providing a template for other authorities. We can also regret that some councils are not only failing to achieve the targets set by Government, but are taking retrograde steps. Blaenau Gwent, for example, is now recycling 5 per cent less of its waste than was the case four or five years ago, and that is disappointing.

Having said that, it is not Plaid Cymru’s policy that we should have the same collection methods across Wales. The nature of those various areas—and rurality in particular—can mean that we must provide some freedom for local authorities to work together to come up with solutions that are relevant to them but are within the envelope of achieving a zero-waste Wales.

But there is a gap—even given the fact that Wales is performing so well in recycling—in terms of the waste that is going to landfill and non-recyclable waste. That includes waste such polystyrene packaging and styrofoam—something that is banned in some nations now and something that we should consider banning in Wales in earnest. If we don’t have the powers under the new Wales Act, then we should work with other nations within the British Isles and our European partners to ban this kind of packaging.

Plaid Cymru is also strongly of the opinion that there should be a deposit-return scheme for plastic, glass and cans, and we see this in general across Europe, and I see more and more small shops in nations that do espouse these methods than we see in Wales. I therefore don’t believe that this is any sort of barrier to the local economy, but rather will add to the local economy. We can ensure that that is a benefit to shops and customers, as is already the case in Germany, among other nations.

The main problem we have is plastic. Plastic is a kind of fuel; it is oil based. With plastic there is also the issue of microbeads, which is still a problem in our environment. Although we are to ban them from cosmetics over the next year, the impact on our fisheries and our beaches, particularly, is very detrimental. We want to see more done to tackle these kinds of plastics, and to cease using oil-based materials in creating unnecessary packaging, but to use the resource of oil for its main purposes while we have it—for energy and for chemicals that can benefit the economy more widely.

I do think it’s possible, if we were to put in place a deposit-return scheme and a ban on some plastics that can’t be recycled such as polystyrene, and a proposal to ensure that any street food sold should be placed in biodegradable packaging—we could assist the Welsh Government in achieving a zero-waste economy by 2050. Plaid Cymru and the Plaid Cymru amendments are seeking to assist the Government in achieving that.

It’s good to see the Minister back in place in leading on this work, as he did in the previous Government, and this is also an opportunity to wish Lesley Griffiths well and wish her a speedy recovery.

I call on Darren Millar to move amendment 3, tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Amendment 3—Paul Davies

Insert as new sub-point at end of motion:

'sustainable development outcomes to be achieved through a more circular economy based on the innovative use of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.'

Amendment 3 moved.

Diolch, Lywydd. Can I move amendment 3 in the name of Paul Davies calling for sustainable development outcomes to be achieved through a more circular economy here in Wales? And, before I go into my speech, can I also echo the comments of Simon Thomas wishing Lesley Griffiths a speedy recovery?

I think it is important that we continue to promote the reduce, reuse and recycle agenda, and that’s why we’ve been fully supportive of the ambition in ‘Towards Zero Waste’, which has been set out by the Welsh Government. In fact, we were very pleased to hear the announcement that was made recently about the £6.5 million, which has been made available to businesses in order to help to promote the circular economy in Wales, because we know that, if a truly circular economy is actually developed here in Wales, it could save us in the region of £2 billion per year, which is money back in the Welsh economy that can be spent in more productive areas, so that, rather than burning waste or putting waste into landfill unnecessarily, we can actually be using that waste in a more responsible way that also adds value to our economy.

We support further investigation into deposit schemes for glass, cans and, indeed, for plastics. And it has been a welcome turnaround by some major companies in recent weeks with their attitudes towards deposit schemes. But I do wonder whether there’s more action than can be taken, particularly in terms of levy schemes sometimes. We know what a huge impact the carrier bag levy scheme had on consumer behaviour. A similar scheme was proposed, of course, by me for a chewing gum levy, because chewing gum litter is one of the banes of my life, and trying to address that problem is something that perhaps the Minister might want to comment on.

But in terms of the situation around Wales, whilst it is indeed fantastic news that we are the second country in Europe in terms of the recycling league table, and third in the world, and whilst it’s fantastic that many local authorities have made excellent progress, including Conwy and Denbighshire in the areas that I represent, I think there is more work to be done in terms of rationalising the various recycling systems that we have here in Wales. It’s entirely inappropriate that we’ve got 22 local authorities all operating different systems. There are huge efficiencies that could be realised for taxpayers in getting some of those local authorities working together in order to organise their waste collection services. It’s entirely wrong that we have such variation, notwithstanding the need, of course, to have different arrangements in very rural areas or semi-rural areas compared to urban areas, as Simon Thomas quite rightly referred to.

Will you give way?

Of course.

I understand that point that he’s making, and I accept some premise to it, but the other side of the argument, of course, is to get some of the manufacturers and food producers and supermarkets to also rationalise how they produce their food and products to us.

I absolutely agree, and that’s why I think the Welsh Government, the UK Government and indeed all the legislatures across the UK need to work together in order to secure some change in attitude from manufacturers and supermarkets and other retailers. One thing I will say, though, is that it’s really important to take the public with you on this journey. We’ve been successful as a nation in doing that to date, but when you reduce waste collection services to a four-weekly basis, which is the situation in Conwy at the moment, you really do begin to lose people’s goodwill, and that is precisely what is happening in Conwy at present. We’ve got 10,000 households there who are on a four-weekly general refuse collection scheme. There has been an increase in fly-tipping reports. There has been an increase in rodent sightings. There are not just the issues of helping to educate people about how to dispose of waste more sensibly, but there are public health risks as well related to this. It cannot be right that pet waste sits in people’s bins for four weeks at a time, because that can cause public health risks to the council workers who then go on to collect that waste. It cannot be right either from an equalities point of view that we have older people, sometimes with clinical conditions, having receptacles outside their front doors that identify them as being vulnerable. Because that is the situation in my constituency at the moment, and people are very unhappy about the new regime.

So I would urge you, Minister, to consider what you might be able to do as a Welsh Government in order to promote the ability of local authorities to work with their residents rather than against the goodwill of their residents in taking this agenda forward. We’ve called for residual waste to be collected no more frequently than fortnightly. I think that that would be a good step forward; it would reassure residents that, whilst they continue to go on this journey and to make every effort to recycle, that they’re not going to be abandoned in terms of their public services.

Just one final point if I may, and that is: local authorities also need to get their act together. I think it’s wrong that we still see litter bins that take just one form of waste without being able to separate it in the way that you can in some local authority areas. Cardiff actually does a good job of this. There are very often bins with three holes in: one for paper, one for plastic products and one for other general refuse. But places like Conwy, whilst they’re expecting the public to recycle in a certain way, don’t have those sort of bins widespread across the county. So, local authorities need to get their house in order as well.

If there is one area of public policy that has improved over the last 20 years, it’s recycling. Thanks to the ambitious targets set by the Welsh Labour Government and action taken by local authorities of all political persuasions, and most importantly by householders, Wales is leading the way in recycling as well as on waste prevention and reuse. While recycling used to be done by the most environmentally aware—and some people will remember a time when, in some authorities, people had to pay for the privilege of recycling by having to buy special bags for recycling—now recycling is done by the majority of the people of Wales. The challenge is to make it all of the people in Wales recycling everything they can all of the time, and that’s a big challenge. We’re now on course to become the highest recycling nation in Europe, and the aim has to be to see a zero waste Wales. Recycling rates in Wales have already increased by more than anywhere else in the UK in the past decade, and Wales now leads UK in the recycling of municipal waste. Eurostat figures for European municipal waste recycling rates show that UK as a whole is in 10 place on 43.5 per cent. However, in the 12 months to September 2016, Wales recorded a 62 per cent recycling rate, which is not only ahead of the 58 per cent target set by the Welsh Government for 2016-17, but also shows Wales outperforming the UK as a whole by over 18 per cent. I think we’ve got to say well done to local authorities on this. Far too often people are very critical of local authorities and local councils, but they are the ones at the sharp end who are making sure this is achieved. Ministers can have policies, but unless the Welsh local authorities go out there and ensure that what we’re asking for is carried out then we will not get to where we need to be. I really do think we need to show our appreciation for local authorities of all political persuasions in what they’ve done.

The landfill tax has driven local authorities to recycle. It is now much more expensive to place rubbish in a hole in the ground than it is to recycle materials. Also, greater environmental awareness by individuals—and again, credit to the schools for promoting recycling—has meant that and more people are willing to recycle. Schools have pushed environmental matters for very many years, and the people who were being pushed on recycling in the schools 20 years ago are now having their own homes and they are making sure they do recycle. I think that some of the things that schools do like this, whilst not examined—they don’t get any marks from Estyn, and don’t get any marks from PISA—do actually make Wales a better place.

One of the problems stopping recycling from increasing further is a lack of clarity, especially with plastics. What can and cannot be recycled? UPVC: can it be recycled? What about Tetra Paks? What about plastic-coated cups? Are plastic wrappers around magazines, which we all get in large numbers, recyclable? And also, having watched ‘The One Show’ last night, I discovered that the black plastic microwavable packaging is not able to be recycled. That came as a shock to me, and I consider myself knowledgeable on this. I always assumed that anything that was hard plastic could be recycled. What we need is for all plastic to be recycled. Too often members of the public are confused over whether something can be recycled or not, and what they do is they take the easy option and they send it to landfill. What we’ve got to do is make sure that that doesn’t happen. Recycle for Wales, a Welsh Government grant funded campaign, recently launched a campaign that persuades people in Wales to increase the food recycling rate by 50 per cent. Wales already recycles half of its food waste and leads the UK, but there’s more to be done. Again, clarity is needed. When food recycling was introduced in Swansea, bones and chicken carcases could not be recycled as food, now they can. Does everybody even know about the change? Also, as in Swansea, food waste needs to be collected weekly. People don’t want to leave food waste out for longer than that or some people will not recycle it, they’ll just get rid of it.

Whilst I support a deposit-return scheme for plastic and glass bottles and cans, and will support the amendment—I remember the Corona bottles with 5p deposit on them, which then went up to 10p deposit on them, and I spent many a happy time down the beach collecting such bottles and returning them—I do not see how it can work on anything but an England-and-Wales basis, otherwise you may well have waste tourism going the wrong way. Otherwise cans and bottles bought in England without a deposit, especially on the border, will be returned in Wales. But I think it really is something that’s very important. People say it won’t work. It worked for very many years. For those people who remember Corona bottles, they always had money on them, people always took them back, and if they didn’t there’d be no shortage of children collecting them to take them back to get the money. So, I think that it is something that is very good, and we do need to go at it. It’s the need for it to be on an England-and-Wales basis, not to have confusion around the border.

Finally, I want to commend Swansea on its recycling. Recyclable materials are collected separately. Those taking black bags of mixed rubbish ready for landfill have their bags opened and those items that can be recycled identified for them. For the first 11 months of 2016-17, unconfirmed recycling figures in Swansea are almost 64 per cent. In terms of the household waste recycling centres initiative, the monthly tonnage of residual waste has dropped from about 1,000 tonnes per month to under 200 tonnes per month. So progress is being made—well done local authorities.

I would like to, first of all, declare an interest as a Powys county councillor. I would agree with the Cabinet Secretary, I think that the Welsh Government has got a good story to tell with regard to its recycling rate—not only, of course, the best in the UK, but one of the best recycling targets around the world. I think that’s to be absolutely commended. As well as that, the Cabinet Secretary said in his opening comments that he wants to build on that performance, and I want to see that happen as well. But what I wanted to do today, I hope, constructively, was to bring forward some examples in rural Wales where I do believe that there is a stumbling block to that actually happening, and I hope I can do that in a productive way today.

But I think it’s right to make you aware that rural authorities, I think, in particular, are facing a real challenge when it comes to recycling. I would like to bring some examples from my own constituency, but note that they’re happening across Wales in rural areas. For example, I look at Machynlleth in my own constituency—the local authority closed the recycling centre there last year, and now residents there have to travel on a 60-mile round trip to dispose of their recycling waste.

I held a surgery, actually, just before Christmas, and one constituent came to my surgery with a big tub of oil and helped me put it into my boot—he asked me where I was going next. I said ‘Newtown’, and he said, ‘Can you take this to the recycling centre?’ He had a motorbike and couldn’t do it, and, of course, that’s all he wanted to see me about, and he was making a very important point that was received by me, as that oil sloshed around the back of my car all the way back to Newtown.

The other issue as well is that, at the moment, the two largest towns in my constituency, Newtown and Welshpool, both have a recycling centre open seven days a week—very well received by the public, very busy. I use them myself. One of the recycling centres—the one I use—actually often has queues to use particular skips within that centre, but what the local authority is doing now, due to a cost-saving measure, is reducing that, as of next month, from seven days to three days a week, and there’s a big public backlash against this. What this does, of course, is make recycling more difficult for people. This is done as a cost—yes, I’ll take an intervention from Mike Hedges.

As a councillor in Powys, what are you doing to stop the council doing that? [Laughter.]

What I’ll say, Mike Hedges, is that, just in the same way that I’m not a member of the Welsh Government, I’m bringing forward issues here today, I’m not a member of the council’s cabinet, and I think it’s right in this debate today—surely it’s right, is it not, for me to represent my constituents in this building today and say what some of the issues that are affecting them? I’m certainly very willing to work with the local authority and be constructive in working with them and bring forward solutions as well. That’s why I want to have this debate today. I want the Cabinet Secretary to bring forward solutions as well to help me to help my local authority, Mike Hedges.

But what I would say as well is that the other issue that is particularly relevant, I think, in rural areas is recycling for businesses. I do genuinely look to the Cabinet Secretary to come forward with a solution or acknowledge the problem, but many local authorities in rural areas are actually now reducing the list of items that can be taken to their recycling facility areas. They’re reducing the list, so I’ve got one business in my constituency that’s got recycling waste building up in a corner of their warehouse, because the local authority will no longer take it in their depot. What’s happening there is that they’re saying, ‘Well, go and ask a private company to come and take this from you.’ But, of course, there aren’t any private companies that are willing to go into rural parts of Wales. It’s not commercially viable for them to do so, and this is a very real problem as well.

The other issue is, of course, that the local authority has stopped collecting from businesses last month. So, businesses are now expected to take their recycled waste to their nearest depot. For one business I’ve got, it’s a 45-mile round trip. They’ve got a large amount of recycled waste, but they’ve not got a commercial vehicle. I look at the Cabinet Secretary waving his arms at me—well, I’m genuinely looking for solutions to some of these problems, and I’m wondering whether there is an opportunity here to either change legislation or amend legislation to make it easier for people and businesses in Wales to recycle their household goods and business waste.

But I do want to bring these forward today. I know a lot of businesses are very happy to pay for a service for collection, but that they can’t do so because it’s not commercially viable for companies to come in and offer that service. I think, therefore, the Government needs to step in and fill that market failure.

I share Lesley Griffiths’s ambition to enable us to become a zero-waste nation. We have to keep up the pressure to reduce, reuse and recycle, and our first obligation must be to reduce the amount of waste we create. It is nothing short of shocking that one third of food produced never reaches the table or the plate. On a farm visit yesterday in the Vale of Glamorgan I heard how one leading supermarket insists in their contract with the grower that so-called wonky cauliflowers that don’t meet their cosmetic requirements for perfectly round white cauliflowers have to be ploughed back into the ground rather than sold on to people who are more interested in the taste than the shape of a cauliflower. And more outrageous, waste of perfectly good food that is hard to find, in the context of severe famine today facing at least four countries in Africa, is downright offensive. Frankly, such contracts should be banned, but not, apparently, according to UKIP, who want to delete all mention of further initiatives to achieve sustainable development. I appreciate that this is not something that municipal waste functions of local authorities can address but it may well be possible to use public procurement to change such wasteful practice. The role of the supermarkets in driving evermore unsustainable farming practices is something that requires a separate debate.

Turning to the role of Cardiff council and its strategic role in helping Wales to become the best recycling nation in the world, as it is the largest municipal waste authority that we have, its ‘Stay Out of the Black…Move into the Green’ campaign has made huge strides in driving up recycling. In terms of reusing materials, their free recyclable bulky waste collections has been massively popular and reduced the amount of fly-tipping, because it’s not credible to think that people fly-tip residual waste because there’s hardly any of it. That is where you get fly-tipping, apart from the actual criminal organisation of the fly-tipping of commercial waste.

However, in terms of talking to our populations, there’s obviously a lot more that we can do. I had a conversation this morning with a constituent who assured me that she and her neighbours found it impossible to confine their residual waste to the size of the bin provided for fortnightly collections. I was not convinced, and during the conversation it emerged that this person was indeed placing recyclable items into the non-recyclable bin. It illustrates the fact that 50 per cent of what is in non-recyclable household waste could be recycled. So, we obviously have a major challenge there. I’d be happy to talk to any of my constituents who think they can demonstrate that they cannot reduce their non-recyclable waste to the restricted bin that Cardiff provides, bearing in mind that there are separate collections for clinical waste, including nappies. I have yet to meet any household who cannot comply as opposed to can’t be bothered to comply or is not aware of what can and should be recycled.

An irresponsible person’s waste has to be paid for by other members of the community, whether it’s the cost of picking up litter or disposing of recyclables as if it were general waste. I look forward to seeing the landfill disposals tax community scheme being used to address the fact that there’s no such thing as throwing away. Every tonne of non-recyclable waste costs £80 a tonne in landfill tax, as well as the cost of disposing of it. That opportunity cost translates into other essential services that are not provided. So, we have an obligation to reduce our greenhouse emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050, and landfill is not it because of the methane produced.

So, we can see exactly how well we’re doing, as non-recyclable waste is one of the 40 national well-being indicators in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Local authorities all need to adopt best practice to increase recycling rates. So, therefore, I oppose amendment 4 that UKIP proposes. If Isle of Anglesey County Council can have three-weekly residual waste collections, and Conwy is moving towards monthly collections, I do not understand why other local authorities cannot do that.

Plastic bag use is down 70 per cent since we introduced the levy. Could we not apply a similar levy to wasteful packaging, as described by Simon Thomas? Plastics Europe, the trade body, says that two thirds of plastics used in UK is for packaging, and we can learn from the German Government, who introduced legislation in 1996 to compel manufacturing companies to design out wasteful packaging from their processes. It's no coincidence that Germany is now the top European nation in recycling, and we should obviously be embracing the way they've done things.

In the fourth Assembly’s environment—

You need to bring your comments to an end now.

[Continues.]—committee legacy report, it was suggested we should abandon weight-based recycling targets to carbon-based targets, to avoid perverse incentives and, more radically, we could convert waste collections—

Bring your comments to an end.

[Continues.]—to a pay-as-you-go service like electricity and gas. And I look forward to hearing the Government's comments.

Any initiative that reduces our carbon footprint is, of course, welcome, but, yet again, we are seeing a proposal that is wrongly blaming the consumer over the manufacturer. I would like to see a proposal that puts the emphasis on those who can actually prevent the production of waste in the first place, and that can only be done by those who are making and selling the products—coincidentally, those who make a lot of money out of the Welsh consumer. It is always better to preserve the use of energy than to try to militate against it, and a reduction in waste is much more preferable to recycling, which often uses a lot of energy itself. Often, the greenhouse gases caused by the process of recycling are forgotten, as people consider recycling as environmentally friendly. It's as if we consider recycled material as being carbon neutral, whereas it clearly isn't.

Manufacturers make great play of their recyclable packaging, hoping the consumer will ignore the fact that it would be much better for the environment had the packaging never been made in the first place. A reduction in packaging would not just save on the original production, but would also mean more of the product could be transported at once, and a reduction in the need for transporting waste to recycling plants. Manufacturers and retailers have been given a free pass on this issue, as the cost of disposal and recycling has always been passed on to the consumer. The consumer has no meaningful choice of a lower-packaged option at the shelves, so it is vital that much more is done to force manufacturers to lower their use of packaging. So far, all the initiatives have protected big business and hammered the consumer. I would like to see this reversed. Let's stand up for the consumer, who, after all, has to pay for a bag to carry the packaging in and council tax to get rid of it, and make sure those who are in a position to do something about it, i.e. the manufacturer and retailer, actually do something.

An example of the wrong impression that can be given is over the carrier bag charge. It is disingenuous to use the figures that are bandied about on the reduction of bag use, because it does not necessarily reflect a comparable drop in the amount of plastic used. The 5p bags from some retailers have significantly more plastic in them than the old single-use bags. So, the reduction in the number of bags used does not necessarily reflect a corresponding reduction in plastic disposed of, and all of those bags for life, which have a lot more plastic in them as well, will have to be disposed of at some point in the future anyway. Let's set a meaningful target that relates specifically to the carbon footprint.

The motion also ignores some other major factors creating waste and greenhouse gases. Estimates suggest that discarded food produces more than 21 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year. The amount wasted of just one food product, chicken, equates to greenhouse gases equalling those produced by 290,000 cars a year, yet we are doing next to nothing to tackle this issue. The amount of food that households in Wales throw in the bin is less than the rest of the UK, and that's very good, but in 2015, households in Wales threw away £13 billion-worth and over 300,000 tonnes of food. Think about what the food banks would have done with all that food if it had been donated to them on the way out of the supermarket instead of sitting in a fridge and then being put in the bin because it's out of date. It's a waste of food, of the energy and resources that went into producing it, and, in the case of meat, a huge waste of life. Where is the Welsh Government's policy on this?

The proposals outlined in the motion are fine in themselves but are simply not enough and seem to be more about targets Welsh Government can use to boast, rather than boost our tackling of greenhouse gases. Aiming to be the best country in the world for recycling is a target that essentially means nothing. It would be possible to be the best country in the world for recycling and have the worst carbon footprint at the same time. If the Welsh Government go down this route in an attempt to look like the king or queen of recycling, the risk is that we will instead end up as the emperor of the environment wearing some rather questionable clothes. Thank you.

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak in this very important debate. I’d like to start by saying, as the Cabinet Secretary did in his introduction, how proud I am of what we’ve managed to do here in Wales about recycling. I’m sorry that UKIP is so grudging in some of their comments, because I think where we’ve made such really good progress, we need to acknowledge it. I do think that the tax on plastic bags was a huge success, and certainly has been one of the most imaginative ways of catching people’s commitment to recycling.

So, I also welcome the fact that we are now in Europe second only to Germany, with a recycling rate of 62 per cent compared with Germany’s 66 per cent. I think it’s very important that Wales has set statutory recycling targets. I welcome the 70 per cent recycling by 2025 and I commend the thrust of the ‘Towards Zero Waste’ strategy, and I’m sure soon we’ll be the first in the world.

Now, in Cardiff, as Jenny Rathbone, my colleague, has already said, the council has taken a strong lead in pushing up the rates of recycling. In fact, in the north of the city, in Cardiff North, 95.4 per cent of Cardiff North residents actually use the city’s waste and recycling services. I’m looking forward to the commitment that there will be a new recycling facility in the north of the city as well as the very successful free service now offered by the council to pick up bulky goods, which has been a huge success, and my colleague Jenny Rathbone also mentioned that.

Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan councils—which is a great thing, because the two councils are working together—are also now able to recycle 97 per cent of food waste at the new anaerobic digester plant in the city, which was officially opened last week. As well as being able to deal with 35,000 tonnes of food waste, it is already generating green electricity as a by-product and will soon be producing enough power for 4,000 homes as well as a soil conditioner product. So, it is covering many areas.

I do welcome the fact that councils are working together to deal with food waste. However, I think we should remember that it is the individual responsibility of us all to try to reduce waste ourselves, and also that I think the supermarkets do play a key role in this. I held a short debate on food waste in November 2015, when the present Cabinet Secretary was actually then the Minister for Natural Resources. I think we did say at that time that perhaps the Assembly could look at the legislative competence we have here in terms of controlling the waste produced by supermarkets, following legislation that had been introduced in France. I wondered if perhaps that was something that we could return to and see whether there is any legislative competence to act on that.

I would also urge the Government to move forward with plans for deposit-return schemes for drinks bottles and cans, possibly. We know that Scotland has announced that it is going to have a trial of a deposit-return scheme for drinks containers, so I think we’ll be able to learn by what they’re going to do. But also I hope we can start a similar trial in Wales as soon as possible.

Simon Thomas mentioned Coca-Cola’s support, which has already been mentioned, and I think it’s very important that we do get these big organisations to come on board. I think a deposit-return scheme should be part of an overall strategy. It should play a part in a circular economy. But Coca-Cola actually said that, through their research, 63 per cent of their consumers support a deposit-return in the UK, and 51 per cent say they would be more likely to recycle if such a scheme was brought in.

So, in conclusion, I feel that Wales has made great strides in this field. I think we’ve got a lot to be proud of. There’s a long way to go, but I think there are lots of ideas and new initiatives that we can follow up to boost our recycling rates even higher.

I share the remarks about Wales. We should congratulate ourselves on being third in the world. That is actually a very, very significant accolade and obviously presents an opportunity to maintain our leadership position in terms of recycling as a contribution to our environmental goals, but also it provides us with an opportunity to grasp to put sustainability at the heart of our economy. This presents opportunities for us more broadly.

In her consideration in due course of this debate, when the Cabinet Secretary is back with us, I would ask her to consider the contents of the Bevan Foundation report in June 2016, ‘Tax for Good’, which actually makes some very interesting recommendations that are pertinent to today’s debate. It looks at the power under the Wales Act 2014 for the Assembly to propose completely new taxes in devolved areas.

One of the taxes that it explores in the report is the idea of a takeaway packaging tax, identifying expanded polystyrene, which is a very popular form of packaging, in particular with the takeaway food industry because of its thermal properties, it doesn’t affect the food and drink and it’s also highly cost effective. It comes in at about half the cost of biodegradable alternatives, which are significantly more expensive as a result.

The challenge for us of course is that there are only very limited recycling opportunities in Wales, as elsewhere, for polystyrene products. So, as a result, it’s a waste that tends to end up either in landfill or in litter. Two weeks ago, I think it was, I spent a lovely Saturday morning on the Neath canal cleaning the litter from the banks there. A significant proportion of that, it seemed to me, was polystyrene. It’s very light and it floats and therefore is a particular issue in terms of waterways and seas. So, I think there’s a particular challenge for us there.

This sort of tax is not without its obstacles and not without its limitations. There are significant potential compliance issues, although a number of the outlets that use it are ones that have existing relationships with local government, for food hygiene purposes and so on. So, there are mechanisms to deliver this outcome. We need to be careful about the employment consequences of introducing a tax of this sort. There are lots of jobs in some of the packaging sectors that would be affected. But, I think, on that latter point, we should look to some of the experience that they’ve had in some of the Scandinavian countries where there have been very progressive steps taken in relation to this sort of measure.

In Finland, for example, when they introduced a similar tax there, although the tax doesn’t raise very much revenue, it seems to have led to the production of new packaging industries and to other industries emerging, such as cleaning reusable glass. So, there are potential opportunities that arise from this. I think it’s a reminder to us that the circular economy—yes, it’s about recycling, but it’s also about a fundamentally different set of relationships with our assets and what we deal with in daily life, beyond disposability. There are opportunities for economic development that might arise out of this as well. So, I hope the Cabinet Secretary will give that careful consideration.

Thank you for allowing me to take part. I don’t want to repeat anything that’s already been said, so I want to focus my contribution to today’s debate on the different methods of waste collection. There are three main types. The method advocated by the Welsh Government in its collection blueprint is kerbside sort. That involves the users sorting the dry recyclable waste into different materials at the points at which it will be collected.

At the opposite end of the scale, there is another method called co-mingling, where all the dry recyclable materials are collected into a single container or bag and sorted at the materials recovery facility. The problem is that the co-mingled waste collection method often results in a higher rate of rejected recyclable waste due to cross-contamination. There are pros and cons of course for each method. I’m also very aware that where kerbside sort has been introduced, it has been met with some strong opposition and also some lower rates of recycling. I do recognise also that this sort of kerbside sorting won’t suit everybody—that there are people in flats, that there are people who are frail and vulnerable—and that there might be some difficulties that could be addressed by local authorities playing their part and finding solutions for those families. We’ve heard some of those issues here today. I believe that having an all-Wales waste collection method could help alleviate the confusion that we’ve been talking about here today with these multiple methods, and create a single understanding of what is to be recycled.

I also recognise that in order to achieve a circular economy in Wales we do need to utilise as much as possible of the recyclable material collected in Wales, and municipal waste has an important role to play in that part. In order to achieve the 70 per cent recycling target by 2025, the collection blueprint recommends the collection of other waste for recycling from the kerbside, for example, of textiles, shoes and other non-packaging material that nobody has mentioned here today. I wonder, Cabinet Secretary, whether you will ask your colleague, when she returns, whether she might consider that.

Another issue that I want to raise today is the issue of bulk waste disposal licensing. I know that, very often, householders will call people because they’ve heard that they will get rid of their waste, and they will do it cheaper, sometimes, than those others who have licences. I think there’s a big issue here. I don’t think that people realise that there is such a scheme. I think they do this in ignorance of that scheme. Of course, the waste that’s collected for £2 or £3 finds itself at the end of perhaps their street or not very far away.

The other issue I want to bring, because I’m staggered today to hear that Cardiff council collects bulk waste for nothing. In Pembrokeshire it’s £40. You can, of course, recycle up to 10 items, if you like, but I don’t know many people that have got that many items. The £40 minimum charge is, in my opinion, an outrageous charge, and it’s certainly going to add into, probably, the prospect of fly-tipping.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children to reply to the debate—Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Llywydd. A really interesting debate, with the contributions raised by many today. Thank you for the opportunity to respond. I’ll consider all of the points made in charting our way forward, and I know that the Minister’s officials will be watching closely, not just about what I say but about what you’ve said in terms of the opportunities that will present in the future. I’m sure that they will give advice to the Minister on those issues.

The Government opposes amendment 1 to the motion, and supports amendments 2 and 3. We are considering the deposit-return scheme. I know that Julie Morgan has long made reference to this, and it’s something that I know the Minister is keen to pursue. The Government also opposes amendments 4 and 5. The Government is not aware of any evidence on collection, only the anecdotal ones that Members have raised here today about the difference between residual waste collection frequencies and fly-tipping. There are many local authorities exhibiting best practice, and many Members today have alluded to that. These authorities cover different sociodemographic and different service types. Singling out any individual authority in this context might be difficult, but we have, as the Senedd today, celebrated the fact that Wales is a world leader in recycling. Julie and others are absolutely right to say that we should be celebrating this. It just shows the example of what Wales can achieve when we work together.

Can I pick up some of the points that were raised by Members today, if I may, Llywydd? Lots of people mentioned the issues of thanking communities—people in our communities that deliver on these services with local authorities, and I congratulate them too. They are an important part of this process. It’s not about what the Government can do. We all have a duty to take care of our environment and make sure that we manage the waste product that is created in society.

Jenny Rathbone raised issues of food and food waste, and she’s absolutely right. At the weekend I bought a wonky veg box, because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it makes a great Sunday dinner. And the issue is very serious, actually. This is about long-term food security that we have to think about carefully, and, therefore, the Member is right to raise this issue, and the shocking statistic that she raised on food waste is something I know the Minister is concerned about.

The issue that was raised by Julie Morgan and others, Jeremy Miles mentioned a very important position about—. Actually, it’s not just about the food waste programme; it’s about the technology that comes from there as well. I remember when I was the Minister responsible for this department, I visited a place in north Wales that was making egg boxes and different cartons out of grass, which is a sustainable product, and it was all recyclable.

That brings me quite nicely to the contribution by the UKIP Members and the Conservatives. [Laughter.] The issue of Gareth Bennett, his opening contribution was, ‘We don’t know where you’re going with recycling, so we won’t be supporting this.’ Well, Gareth, we’re second in Europe and third in the world. That does tell you something, I hope, that we are a world, groundbreaking nation in terms of delivery. I also saw recently on the internet some great work that’s going on across many communities, including Cardiff, where you’ve got many fantastic councillors, but our local councillors Ed Stubbs and Huw Thomas, there the other day, with their local community, picking up some litter, with their residents, doing a great job. We should not underestimate the opportunities that that there brings. But we do know there is history in this. Gareth Bennett, I picked up the article, actually, a ‘Western Mail’ article, from when the Member was standing prior to the election, who then was blaming ethnic minorities for litter picking in Cardiff. I think the Member—. I don’t remember if the Member has ever responded to that or apologised to our ethnic—

Will you give way?

Yes, I will; I’m more than happy to.

You are partly correct, but I would actually advise you to look at the original piece that Martin Shipton wrote, because I didn’t solely blame ethnic minorities; I also blamed students as well.

So, not just ethnic minorities, but others as well. I think the Member would have been better using that contribution to apologise to the people in Cardiff, rather than make opportunities there.

And the issue that Michelle Brown raised as well, I listened very carefully to that. She belittles the issue around carrier bag charges. Long gone are the days, I hope, where we saw trees covered in carrier bags. We used to grow them in Wales, but now that doesn’t seem to appear. We’ve managed to control that issue. There is also the issue that we have to be responsible for the population, but everybody’s got a responsibility around waste. In my contribution, at the start, I did mention to the Member and the Chamber about enhanced producer responsibility and the issue around food waste as well, so I would hope that I’ve given the Member some confidence in terms of what we’re able to do here in Wales.

Simon Thomas, again, very supportive with his contribution, and is long a campaigner on environmental standards.

Can I just pick up on the last two points with the Conservative Members? Russell George gave me some challenges. Well, I’ll give him some responses, and Darren Miller, his companion, the chewing gum champion from the north. They say one thing, but really they mean another. They say that they’re supportive of recycling and it’s going really well, but, actually, when it comes to the proof of the pudding, they want to object to all the changes that local authorities need to do in that process. [Interruption.] It is true, because let’s take the Russell George. I understand, Russell. You asked me about what can Powys do—you’re a councillor in the authority—and what else we can do to help. What it does help with Powys council is when they’re able to spend their budget, but I believe that you voted against their budget in terms of allowing them to create a better environment for recycling.

Russell George rose—

So how can they keep their waste recycling centres open when you’re taking the money away for them to do that? Let me just also remind the Members—[Interruption.] I will take an intervention. I’d love it. Let me just also remind the Members opposite. [Interruption.] Llywydd, let me remind the Members opposite: they talked about what we’re doing for the environment and what we can do to help businesses as well. I also recall when we introduced the environment Act in the last Government, those people voted against that, too. So, don’t claim to be the champions of the environment; you’re no champions of the environment, you’re political—. You’re just trying the political circle, trying to win votes where it doesn’t help.

Llywydd, finishing off, we are second in Europe, third in the world in terms of our recycling opportunities, and I move the motion today. [Interruption.]

Can we hear the Minister finish off? [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’]

The Cabinet Secretary has finished. Thank you for that. As important as your contribution has been this afternoon, I’m sure that we will all look forward to Lesley Griffiths attending, once more, this Chamber and that we, more importantly, wish her well in her recovery from her accident.

Y cwestiwn felly yw: a ddylid derbyn gwelliant 1? A oes unrhyw wrthwynebiad? [Gwrthwynebiad].

Voting deferred until voting time.

Therefore, we move to voting time on this item. That brings us to voting time unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung.