To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidance (a) his Department and (b) the Waste and Resources Action Programme has provided to local authorities on the size of wheelie bins for collections of household waste. (145240)

Section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 empowers local authorities to specify the number, size, construction and maintenance of their waste receptacles, what can be placed in each, and also where and when they should be placed for collection.

My Department has funded the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), to provide advice and support to local authorities in carrying out their recycling and waste collection operations efficiently and effectively. However, WRAP has not produced any specific guidance on the size of wheelie bins for the collection of household waste.

Decisions on the best way to collect waste are rightly a matter for local authorities, not central Government.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the comments made by the Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food on 10 May 2007, House of Lords, Official Report, column 1534, (1) what estimate his Department has made of the increase in fly-tipping resulting from the move to alternate weekly collections of household rubbish; (145348)

My Department has not made any assessment of fly-tipping incidents resulting from local authorities moving to alternate weekly collections of household waste.

There is currently no evidence that switching to alternate weekly collection of household waste results in an increase in fly tipping incidents.

Any changes to waste collection methods that are poorly implemented may increase the risk of fly-tipping. However, DEFRA actively encourages local authorities to have fly-tipping prevention and enforcement strategies in place, regardless of whether they introduce alternate weekly collections or not.

My Department is currently in discussions with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to consider whether they could work with any local authorities that are introducing these schemes in the future to carry out some pre, and post, scheme analysis of fly-tipping. This is in addition to the guidance that WRAP is currently updating on alternate weekly collections, in order to minimise nuisance and health risks.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to determine what works best for their own community, rather than central Government.

My Department is currently consulting on proposals to give local authorities the freedom to introduce financial incentive schemes to encourage recycling and minimisation of waste by householders. This consultation seeks views on what controls, if any, Government should place on local authorities before allowing them to introduce such incentive schemes. We have proposed that there should be a requirement for local authorities who use these powers to have fly-tipping prevention and enforcement strategies in place.