Recommendation 6

The government does not yet have good enough data to manage the waste system effectively, which it needs to understand how waste is recycled and to ensure waste exports are legal. To track progress and refine its plans the Department needs good information on outcomes such as waste production, landfilling and recycling. There are serious gaps and limitations in the Department’s data, for example commercial and industrial waste represents around one-fifth of total waste generated but the Department does not publish data on how much of it is recycled as it does not yet have a robust methodology for determining this. It is confident the waste-tracking project, expected to be completed by April 2025 at a cost of £9.5 million, will provide significantly more data to understand how waste is recycled and to ensure waste exports are legal and meets its waste export requirements. The Department says that it has an evaluation programme in place to develop new measures and the data behind them, and is carrying out research to fill gaps in its data. 8 Government’s programme of waste reforms Recommendation 6: The Department should set out it in its Treasury Minute what it sees as the priority data gaps and set ambitious timescales for filling the data gaps. Government’s programme of waste reforms 9 1 Collection and packaging reforms