Waste collection authorities including districts have only six weeks to fight off the latest attempt to erode local government fiscal autonomy. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) Consultation on Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England seeks views on whether councils should be required to offer free fortnightly garden waste collections.

The WRAP-inspired policy is simply to deliver a measurable increase in recycling rates by collecting garden waste for composting in a location far from where it should be composted, namely people’s gardens. The proposal tramples roughshod over the statutory waste hierarchy. Recycling on site is better for the environment than processing it elsewhere. Do WRAP and DEFRA think that none of the earth’s resources are used in manufacturing vehicles or processing machinery, or that no greenhouse gases are emitted in operating them?