Unless the waste industry, third sector and local authorities collectively agree on a methodology to calculate social impacts, the opportunity to generate social value from waste will be missed.

Talking about the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, Resource Association chief executive Ray Georgeson said that the Government had shown very little interest in taking it forward.

As a result, he said it was up to the relevant stakeholder groups to work more closely together to determine what the Act needed to achieve and then deliver it.