Following on from the two blog posts released earlier this year – The power of circular citizenship in Wales (Part 1) and The power of circular citizenship in Wales (Part 2) – I have now produced a paper that explores the topic of circular citizenship in Wales in more depth. The paper is summarised below and is available to download (and print) at: Circular citizenship in Wales
Circular citizenship relates to the way people seek to understand and engage in processes and systems connected to waste management and resource use associated with deliberate choices to be more prudent and less wasteful. This exploration of circular citizenship in Wales begins in the late 1970’s with the establishment of the Community Support Anti-Waste Scheme in Cardiff followed in the mid-1980’s by the emergence of Wastesavers in Newport, and in the late 1990’s by Cylch – the Wales Community Recycling Network. A common theme linking these pioneering community-led recycling efforts is the way they view ‘waste’ materials “as valuable resources, which, if managed effectively, create environmental, social and economic benefits for individuals and the communities in which they live”.
The devolution of powers to Wales in 1999 included the transfer of responsibility for waste management and the promotion of sustainable development to the Welsh Government. Cylch’s dedication to promoting “sustainable resource management through public education and practical action” found practical expression in the approach to “Total Resource Recovery” known as Cleanstream® which was first introduced in March 2000. This constituted a profound community contribution to the emerging national waste strategy for Wales.
Cleanstream® was informed by the global ‘zero waste’ movement and was designed to set a standard and describe a process “to achieve radical change in the way we manage resources after first use”. The process was intended to show how Wales could “utilise its newfound political independence…to reap the tremendous benefits of changing to this very Sustainable Resource Management System” that placed great emphasis on preserving recyclate quality.
By February 2010 several important developments helped progress Wales’s zero waste vision, including:
- The provision of financial support to expand community sector waste, re-use, recycling and composting projects, including as part of the New Opportunities Fund;
- The introduction of separate food waste collections;
- The publication (in May 2009) of One Wales: One Planet, which committed the Welsh Assembly Government to embrace sustainable development as the central organising principle and the “overarching strategic aim of all policies and programmes across all Ministerial portfolios” that “sets out a vision of a sustainable Wales, based on using only a fair share of the earth’s resources and becoming a fairer and more just nation”;
- The inclusion within the Sustainable Development Annual Report 2008-2009 of the aspiration that “…local people are involved to promote low-carbon, low-waste living as part of a One Planet Nation…”;
- The adoption of The National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Environment) Order which “conferred the National Assembly for Wales with legislative competence to make primary legislation (known as Assembly ‘Measures’) in respect of waste”; and
- The proposal for a series of ‘waste measures’ designed “to ensure that municipal waste in Wales is managed in a way that delivers the most beneficial environmental outcomes”.
These developments were boosted by the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which provided a legally binding requirement for public bodies to: “take account of the long-term, help to prevent problems occurring or getting worse, take an integrated and collaborative approach”.
Wales continued to make progress with recycling and composting, and with diverting waste from both landfill and incineration. These efforts were celebrated with the publication in March 2021 of ‘Beyond Recycling’ the Circular Economy Strategy for Wales, which is described as “A strategy to make the circular economy in Wales a reality”. The publication of Beyond Recycling was accompanied by an immediate moratorium on any new ‘large scale’ waste incinerators (i.e. incinerators capable of generating 10MW or more of electricity from burning waste).
The Written Statement released alongside Beyond Recycling explained how: “As repair, re-use and recycling continue to expand, we want to ensure the capacity we have for generating energy from waste is in line with the capacity needed during our transition to a circular economy, with the long-term solution being to move away from incineration. We also want to see our towns across Wales demonstrate circular approaches by having repair and re-use hubs as well as other important infrastructure including refill points, zero waste shops and resilient green infrastructure”.
Wales’s role as trailblazer and exemplar is confirmed by the actions of the Scottish Government, who followed suit with their own incinerator moratorium in 2022 following the temporary pause that was announced in November 2021.
Reflecting on the way that Wales took advantage of their devolved responsibility for waste / resource management, within a wider context of sustainability, a number of ‘success factors’ that contributed to the realisation of aspects of Wales’s zero waste vision can be identified, such as:
- Involvement of the zero waste community
- Emphasis on preserving recyclate quality
- Proactive involvement of Government
- Widespread ‘buy-in’ to Wales’s zero waste vision
- The wider context for change
Each of these success factors is briefly explored, both individually and in relationship with the other success factors. These explorations informed the conclusions that:
- Each success factor taken in isolation is inadequate to explain Wales’s success.
- It is only because of the historic interrelationships between these factors that Wales was able to change the culture of those involved in resource management and move from a recycling rate of around 5% at the end of the 20th Century to around 66% some 25 years later.
- These factors need reinforcing if Wales is to maintain its world-leading status.
- If any of the relationships between these factors were to deteriorate this would jeopardise the ongoing realisation of Wales’s One Planet low-carbon, zero waste vision.
- For other nations, including England, that might wish to replicate Wales’s success, the lesson is that it is not enough simply to impose the laws and strategies that contributed to Wales’s success without involving circular citizens in the realisation of zero waste ambitions.
- It is not enough to ‘leave it to the market to decide’, or indeed to leave it to circular citizens alone to achieve, as the realisation of the circular economy demands a more holistic approach to managing change, including cultural change.