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,
20th June 2013
Recent reports in the trade press of the difficulties experienced by plastics recycling facilities in England and Wales should come as a warning to policy-makers who base their waste management strategies on ever-higher materials recycling targets, while at the same time placing a ceiling on the percentage of waste sent to energy recovery. A successful recycling-based strategy requires all elements
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
7th May 2013
One of the world’s most endangered insect species, the Tansy Beetle, has been given a helping hand along the road to survival by a grant of £25,000 from SITA Trust. This project is run by Buglife, as part of the national B-Lines initiative, which aims to address the loss of wildflower-rich grasslands, to benefit bumblebees, butterflies and moths and in
2nd May 2013
I’ve always felt a sense of satisfaction when I separate out my food waste at home, but a recent TV news report made me question if I’m doing the right thing. The report came from an anaerobic digestion facility and talked about the problems of food waste in the UK. All absolutely true, of course, and campaigns by WRAP and
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
17th April 2013
The recent press articles1 on the storage of refuse derived fuel (RDF) bales (or other processed waste) in Essex and other locations means that this issue is gaining profile. Good. The compliant production of refuse derived fuel and solid recovered fuel (SRF) fuels from residual waste has allowed more customers to achieve lower / zero waste to landfill solutions earlier
17th April 2013
April 2013 opens a new chapter in the UK’s efforts to divert waste from landfill, with the end of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS). The Scheme was introduced in 2005 and, in design, paralleled the market-based compliance scheme that applies to packaging waste – the Packaging Recovery Note (PRN) system. Schemes of this sort suited the UK’s “just enough
