A scheme to shift the cost of collecting household waste from taxpayers to producers has been delayed by at least a year.
Steve Palfrey, of the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, conceded the original plan to introduce extended producer responsibility from next year had been ‘ambitious’.
He added: ‘This will mean that the public purse will continue to fund managing packaging waste for another year at a time when council budgets are already extremely stretched.
'Our planet cannot afford for this to be delayed any longer than absolutely necessary.’
The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) warned councils will be forced to award waste management contracts in a ‘vacuum of uncertainty’ following the delay.
LARAC said councils had been delaying new procurements and implementing interim arrangements while waiting for guidance to be issued but it warned this was now becoming ‘unfeasible,’ with local authorities potentially forced to award contracts with no provision for EPR until the next contract cycle.
A statement from LARAC read: ‘The ability for a local authority to implement the changes needed by EPR therefore may now be delayed until 2030 or later.
‘The original target within the resources and waste strategy of 75% of packaging to be recycled by 2030 and a 65% recycling rate for municipal solid waste only five years later by 2035 therefore puts local authorities under a huge amount of additional pressure.’
The Local Government Association is understood to have privately expressed concerns about the practicalities of implementing EPR in 2023-24.
A spokesperson for the Department for Food, Environment & Rural Affairs said the Government wanted to introduce EPR ‘as soon as is practical’.