One of the many elephants in the local government room at present, could rapidly grow in to a giant mammoth, should a Judicial Review go the wrong way.

My thanks to the Local Government Chronicle website and author Mark Smulian for the text below.

Fresh delay for recycling judicial review
15 June, 2012 | By Mark Smulian

A crucial judicial review that could determine the future viability of council recycling services faces a second delay.
The case concerns the way in which the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs transposed European regulations into UK law.

Defra has said it is “seeking agreement on a short extension to the stay” through discussions with the claimants. The case was due to have started on 13 June after being delayed from last December.

It turns on whether or not the regulations allow recyclable material to continue to be ‘comingled’ – collected together for later sorting – or whether different materials must be collected separately, as the industry would prefer, at considerable extra cost to councils.

Defra’s present wording of the amended regulations would see commingled collections continue only where separate collections were not “technically, environmentally and economically practicable” or were necessary to meet “appropriate quality standards”.

The judicial review has been brought by the Campaign for Real Recycling, which opposes comingling and argues that Defra’s current wording is unclear.