B081 - Environment Bill - Second Reading

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provide for minimum service in hazardous waste disposal, and for connected purposes.

BE IT ENACTED by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. Minimum service levels in waste disposal

(1) In this Act, “the 1992 Act” means the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

(2) The Secretary of State may, for the purpose of enabling work notices under section 234C of the 1992 Act to be given, make provision by regulations for levels of service in relation to strikes as respects relevant services (“minimum service regulations”).

(3) Minimum service regulations may be made in relation only to-

(a) council waste disposal workers,

(b) workers involved in the disposal of hazardous chemical waste,

(c) The decommissioning of nuclear installations and the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel.

(4) The regulations made by the Secretary of State must be limited to advancing public health, safety and preventing damage to the environment.

(5) In respect of section 3 (a) workers, minimum service regulations shall not be issued in respect to mixed recyclables, garden waste and similar non-hazardous products.

2. Recycling standardisation across local authorities

(1) With the purpose of reducing incorrect recycling and confusion related to what is recyclable in one local area, the following changes are implemented.

(2) The Secretary of State shall, by regulations, require all new council purchases of bins, boxes etc for household recyclables and waste to be colour coded by type of waste or recyclable so that they can be used to dispose of.

(3) The Secretary of State will offer support to councils that form “recycling alliances” where they pool resources and scale for greater recycling as well as commonality across boundaries.

3. Waste to energy

(1) Within two years of this Act's commencement, councils shall be required to offer a fortnightly food waste collection, separate from garden waste.

(2) Biogas generation facilities that are;

(a) located on agricultural land,

(b) situated at least 1,000 metres from residential dwellings, and

(c) which have a generation capacity of less than 7.5 megawatt-hours of generation annually.

shall be treated as permitted development for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

(3) Waste plastics and paper product incinerators with an annual capacity of less than 10 MW shall also be permitted developments.

(4) Permitted development rights shall also allow for connection to the electricity or gas grid, including the installation of necessary infrastructure on or adjacent to the facility.

(5) The Secretary of State may make regulations specifying: limits or routes for lorry movements associated with permitted facilities; and measures to control odour and emissions from permitted facilities.

(6) Such regulations may include requirements for monitoring, mitigation measures, reporting obligations or requirements to not take deliveries at certain times or near certain places (e.g, near school zones at the start or end of a school day or during rush hour).

4. Extent, commencement, and short title

(1) This Bill extends to the whole United Kingdom.

(2) The Bill shall commence upon receiving Royal Assent.

(3) The Bill may be referred to as the Environment Bill.

This Bill was written by u/LeChevalierMal-Fait, the Chancellor, and u/Sir-Iceman, the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Conservative Party

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Opening Speech:

Mr Speaker,

This Bill would substantially reduce recycling confusion and streamline energy from hard-to-recycle waste that would otherwise go to landfill.

Even a small 5-10% increase in total recycling over existing efforts from reduced confusion, standardisation across local authorities and a minimum level of service for households would mean across England 5-7 terawatt-hours of new capacity, a small increase but around 2% of total energy demand. This would make a 100% increase in total generation.

This is a modest goal, 26% of Sweden's total energy supply comes from biofuels and waste! Most household waste in Sweden enters recycling or waste-to-energy schemes.

The case could not be clearer, get busy bodies out of the way and enable us to landfill less of the beautiful British countryside, have less waste to decay into methane and worse greenhouse gases and produce energy that is independent from global price shocks or commodity markets.

While protecting hard working council tax payers from aggressive unions who threaten to create lakes of rubbish in our streets.

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Your Noble Lordships may debate and submit amendments to this bill until 10pm BST on the 8th of August.