Douglas Council has put forward several recommendations on the upcoming Climate Change Bill including rewarding local authorities for boosting recycling.

The Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture is currently seeking input for its Isle of Man Climate Change Bill 2020.

The council’s executive committee has recommended the legislation should ’include a form of reward for local authorities reducing the waste stream by removing recyclable materials’.

That would include ’targets for recycling, through central collection and through kerbside collection’.

It recommended the initial costs of meeting any future climate change legislation requirements by local authorities be met by the government, after which maintenance and running costs be absorbed by the local authorities.

In relation to local authorities, it said government should co-ordinate action in order to achieve uniformity of approach, and to set minimum standards.

The resale of renewable energy to parties other than the Manx Utilities Authority should be permitted in order to allow, for example, car park operators generating energy to sell to electric vehicle owners, and landlords of flats to be able to sell to tenants. Education on waste disposal, particularly on recycling, should be brought forward in the government’s action plan and ’given some priority’.

The Bill is due to be introduced to Tynwald before the summer recess.