6th September 2013
True to form, Defra has followed up a disappointing consultation on a waste management plan for England with an equally disappointing consultation document on a waste prevention programme for England. As with the former, the abiding impression is that of another tick-box exercise intended to meet the UK’s obligations under Article 29 of the European Union Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC.
6th August 2013
Scotland is gearing up for the implementation of the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 with a strong communications and awareness-raising drive. From 1 January 2014, local authorities and businesses will be required to comply with new legal duties relating to the separate collection of dry recyclables and of food waste, and further treatment of residual waste before it is sent for
23rd July 2013
For a government that aspires to be the ‘greenest ever’, the recent unveiling of two documents – the Defra/BIS-supported circular economy taskforce report ‘Resource Resilient UK’ and Defra’s consultation on its ‘Waste Management Plan for England’ – has gone almost unnoticed. No fanfare, no trumpeting of the Government’s green credentials or of new initiatives to support green growth.
15th July 2013
In October 2012, SITA UK launched a report ‘Creating Social Value – the Role of the Waste and Resource Management Industry’. The report highlights the broader social benefits that the waste and resource management industry, in partnership with the third sector, could offer local authorities alongside the delivery of waste management services. The legal framework for procurement of these services,
25th June 2013
The Local Government Association’s report Wealth from Waste has been received positively by commentators in both the public and private sectors, an indication that we could be approaching convergence on the outlines of a strategy to power the circular economy. Broadly, they involve introducing “push” levers to get more waste out of landfill (though the Local Government Association’s report is somewhat
31st May 2013
The rising incidence of illegal dumping and inappropriate storage of refuse derived fuel (RDF) in England has caught our regulatory and control systems on the hop. When landfilling dominated our waste management system, Government toughened-up its regulatory and inspection regime. This involved a duty being improsed on landfill operators to put forward financial provisions (renewable bonds, cash deposits and the
21st May 2013
It’s not difficult to make the case to reduce, reuse and recycle waste – a point made by the Labour Party in the Resource Security* Policy Review, released on Friday 19 April 2013. It’s also not difficult to understand that recovering the maximum amount of energy from the waste left over is an obvious thing to do. However, neither point
30th April 2013
The Welsh Government has opened a consultation on proposed changes to its national planning policy for the management of waste. The three Welsh Regional Waste Plans have been around for less than 10 years, with the latest revisions dating from as recently as 2008, and serious infrastructure is already being tendered against these Plans. In view of this, the claim
5th April 2013
With the announcement in the Chancellor’s Spring budget that the landfill tax escalator will remain unchanged at £8 per year, landfill tax will reach the Government’s ceiling of £80 per tonne of waste in 2014/15. No surprise here, though the lack of an announcement on the future level of the tax after 2014/15 comes as a disappointment. The Local Government
12th March 2013
Listening to the recent panel response on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions, elicited a ray of hope that the public discussion surrounding energy-from-waste is becoming more sophisticated. The question was asked as to whether the proposed waste incinerator at Javelin Park in Gloucestershire was “a blot on the landscape or a necessary step towards an ecologically sustainable environment”. The panel
