Recently I had an opportunity to speak during the debate on the Assembly’s consultation on the revised national waste strategy. Waste is a fully devolved matter, so Welsh Ministers are required by European and national law to have a national waste strategy for Wales. I’m hoping that my proposed measure on recycling could be a part of the wider national strategy. As a result of research undertaken by Plaid Cymru we discovered that several local authorities are exporting their waste to countries like China, Brazil and India for recycling. Several local authorities did not know where their waste ended up and the purpose of my proposed measure is to place a statutory duty on local authorities to present an annual repost on where their waste is recycled and how much.

As you can imagine some local authorities aren’t happy with the increase in workload but many others have given their full support. But I think it's vital that we as residents have this information and so far I've had a lot of support for this measure. Of course, my proposed Measure corresponds to the Welsh Assembly Government’s waste strategy, particularly as regards developing a more connected recycling infrastructure. This is not possible if we do not know where our waste is being recycled.

Secondly, the proposed Measure will help to boost the economy by creating new green jobs and new business opportunities, thereby expanding the total amount of recycling that is carried out in Wales. This measure would enable our recycling companies to build up their capacity through the information they would receive from local authorities, meaning that we can fulfil our aim of recycling more of our waste within our country’s borders and, above all, to ensure transparency and accountability in the recycling system in Wales.