The draft waste strategy engagement period is now closed
Central government published a new national waste strategy in December 2018, and we have been reviewing our services and developing a new waste strategy for New Forest in line with the government's objectives.
The Draft Waste Strategy (DWS) was approved on 4 November 2020 at the council's cabinet meeting.
Read latest news update about the waste and recycling strategy.
The government's national waste strategy, "Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England" was published in December 2018 and contains objectives for dealing with the nation's waste, and suggestions for how these objectives can be achieved.
In the future, the items that we collect in the New Forest and the way we collect them will be heavily influenced by the national waste strategy.
The strategy was subject to a consultation, and we responded to four key consultations between February and May 2019:
Our response: We welcome any measures that improve recycling and waste minimisation, and believe creating consistency in household recycling across the country and introducing a deposit return scheme would be progressive steps to meeting some of the strategy's key objectives.
Extending the producers' responsibility for packaging and the introduction of a plastic tax, are important actions that we hope will encourage businesses to use more recycled material and move this country towards a more circular economy.
We are pleased that government have indicated that local authorities will be equipped with funds to implement any legislative changes and look forward to seeing the outcome of these consultations.
The results of the consultation indicated strong support for many of the objectives suggested in 'Our Waste, Our Resources: A Strategy for England' and this informed the content of the Environment Bill 2020, which includes the following:
As a result of the above developments a working group of council members and officers was formed in August 2019. The group has been working on developing a new waste strategy that will comply with forthcoming legislation but will also meet the needs of our community.
The working group has considered the following:
Current best practice and what other councils do
We held a formal period of engagement from 12 November to 20 December 2020 providing residents and other stakeholders with the opportunity to learn more about the draft waste strategy, and to submit their views and comments to us using an online survey or paper survey form.
This engagement period ended on 20 December 2020 and the survey is now closed.
You can still read about the proposed changes to the waste and recycling service in New Forest and the reasons for the proposed changes in the documents below.
Download a summary of the draft waste strategy, some more specific information, or the full draft waste strategy:
Summary - Draft waste strategy [346.55KB]
Further information - Draft waste strategy [61.9KB]
In the next phase of our work we will review the survey responses, letters and emails we have received during the engagement period about the proposed changes to the waste and recycling service.
We are also continuing to work on understanding the costs and benefits of making changes to our waste service, and will create a detailed business case for the proposed service changes.
Our findings will then be collated in a report which will inform the development of the final waste strategy, however finalising the waste strategy will also be dependent upon:
The timescale for carrying out this work has been extended into 2021 and therefore we do not expect to make any further decisions on the waste strategy until autumn 2021.
Any changes to the waste and recycling service will not be implemented until 2022 at the earliest.
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