6th May 2014
Demographic changes in the UK have occurred not just in the general population, but also in the business population. These changes make interesting reading in terms of the future prospects for waste and resource management. Latest figures published by the Department for Business Innovation & Skills in October 2013 estimated that there were 4.9 million private sector businesses in the
11th February 2014
The UK has had a penchant for over-complicating environmental legislation. The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (scrapped in 2013), the Carbon Reduction Commitment (supposedly simplified in 2012) and most notoriously, the Electricity Market Reform legislative package – described by one commentator as “a scheme which is liable to disintegrate under the weight of its own complexity” – spring to mind. The
9th January 2014
Waste managers are likely to read the Department for Communities and Local Goverment’s (DCLG) recent Guidance on Weekly Rubbish Collections with, at best, a sense of disbelief. In my view, the response of professional and trade bodies to date has actually been mystifyingly polite. Firstly, the document doesn’t provide “guidance … on how councils can and should deliver weekly rubbish
11th December 2013
We are just emerging from one of the hardest and longest recessions in living memory. Thankfully, the economy is looking far healthier than it did a year ago, with construction activities picking up and manufacturing starting on the road to recovery. This last point was made clear to me recently at the Manufacturer Directors’ Conference in Birmingham, where I experienced
3rd December 2013
The waste-to-resource sector is one of the most active, rapidly growing and capital-intensive sectors in the UK at this time. Our sector has a value in excess of £12 billion and directly employs well over 100,000 people. It reportedly grew at a rate of 3.1 per cent this year and is expected to grow by more than four per cent next
28th October 2013
Energy policy and practice has a lot in common with the waste hierarchy, where minimisation is the first thing to look at. If we all want to keep our fuel bills down, we should try to reduce what we use and then find more sustainable ways of using the energy we need. Making more sustainable energy is a good goal
21st October 2013
Tesco gave some challenging insight to food waste in their report “Tesco and Society: Using our Scale for Good” issued today. Nearly 30,000 tonnes of waste food from the supply chain, store and customer is a big target to work towards, but by my calculations this amounts to around 25kg per Tesco store per day or assuming Tesco’s 30 per
16th October 2013
Earlier this week the Environment Agency issued a report on waste crime (‘Cracking Down on Waste Crime. Waste Crime Report 2012-2013‘). The report acknowledged that while there has been an increase in the crackdown on illegal waste management activity, crime is a significant issue in our sector. It is difficult to appreciate the localised impact of that crime, in the
10th October 2013
Talking to Radio 4’s ‘Costing the Earth’ programme about landfill mining and the resources that have been embedded in landfill sites over the last 50 years, followed by a meeting where we contemplated the future of the waste sector in a sustainable resource economy, has given me an opportunity to reflect. Looking back and understanding what we as a society
23rd September 2013
It’s that time of year when thousands of young people are leaving home and finding their feet at university. When it comes to environmental issues, students can sometimes get a bad press. If I’m honest, I think I spent more time worrying about how many friends I’d made rather than how or where I could recycle my cans. And it’s
