The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has reported a sharp fall in its income for the last financial year. The reduction from £79.9 million in 2010/2011 to £65.6 million in 2011/2012 (a drop of 18 per cent) was due to ‘the reduction in grant funding following the Government Spending Review’.

WRAP’s Annual Report and Consolidated Accounts (audited by KPMG) was released on Wednesday (8 August) and shows that between 31 March 2011/2012, £62.8 million was spent on programmes (compared to £77.2 million the year before) and £2.5 million was spent on management and administration costs. 

Top earners at the company include Chief Executive Liz Goodwin, who earned £186,000 and Chief Finance Officer, Jonathan Lea, who earned £130,000.

Developments over 2011/2012 highlighted in the report include:

• Increased funds during the year principally to provide support for the development of infrastructure for anaerobic digestion;
• Research showing that food waste fell from 8.3 million to 7.2 million tonnes;
• A £1.15 million loan to ECO Plastics that helped it expand its plastic bottle reprocessing facility in Lincolnshire;
• Evaluation that almost a quarter of waste electrical and electronic equipment thrown out each year by consumers could be reused, generating more than £220m in the process;
• Research showed that buying reused bulky items like sofas and TVs saved UK households approximately £1 billion.

The report also states that WRAP has made progress internally cutting waste arisings, in 20011/12 reducing residual waste at their Banbury office from 16 per cent to 11 per cent (of total waste) and from 24 per cent to 13 per cent at their Stirling office. A follow-on target for 2012/2013 to reduce residual waste to three per cent of total waste has now been set, focusing primarily on food waste and unrecyclable paper and plastic wastes.

Writing in the Chairman’s letter, Peter Stone acknowledged that though this year had been “one of the most difficult in living memory, in economic terms”, he was “proud to be able to say that WRAP has successfully kept its focus on working with its partners to help them achieve the benefits of resource efficiencies.

“Saving money, reducing waste and finding ways of minimising our impact on the environment are all critical areas for action if we are, together, to achieve not only WRAP’s own stated goals, but also the wider need to address issues of global resource security.”

The full Annual Report and Consolidated Accounts can be found on WRAP’s website.