LAWR

COMMENT 4 Local Authority Waste & Recycling July 2014 Tackling England's litter blight One billion pounds - the amount that is spent by councils each year cleaning up Britain's litter. It is only thanks to the efforts of local authorities and other land managers, cleaning our streets seven days a week, that we are not drowning in cigarette butts, fast food packaging and alu- minium cans. More than 30m tonnes of litter are collected from the streets in England every year. Responsibility for litter first and foremost lies with the consumer who drops the rubbish on the floor. Yet, councils have the prime responsibility of picking this up. Retailers and big brands also have a part to play in the discussion by promoting anti-letter messages on their packaging and keeping material waste to a minimum. But some local authorities, such as North West Leicestershire District Council, feel that brands should do more to shoulder the burden (see page 17). To help address this problem, Keep Britain Tidy (KBT) recently launched its 'Litter Prevention Campaign' for busi- nesses. Fast food giants McDonald's, KFC, and Domino's Pizza, as well as Coca- Cola and chewing gum producer Wrigley, have signed up to its litter prevention pledge to try to educate customers and change behaviours. Each business that signs up to the Litter Prevention Commitment will be asked to make a financial contribu- tion to support the co-ordination and promotion of the scheme. The Commitment also asks businesses to think about cleanup costs and recycling promotion The KBT has found that litter can be harmful to com- munities and attracts crime. Wales has also discovered that fly-tipped waste can damage local environments. So, it has published a strategy called 'Fly-tipping Free Wales' , which sets out a series of key actions to tackle fly-tipping. It is part of wider programme to promote waste as a resource and aim for 'zero waste'. Nevertheless, if the nation is suffering from green fatigue, as Sita's David Palmer-Jones suggests, the UK may have problems in achieving this zero waste vision. That said, just because you may be bored of something doesn't mean you have fallen out of love with it. Liz Gyekye, Editor Follow me on Twitter: @LAWR_editor " When investing the amount of money we did you can't afford to botch up. Bollegraaf made sure we didn't." Patrick Mc Grath, GM, Cardiff County Council Bollegraaf. World Leaders in Profitable Recycling. bollegraaf.com Bollegraaf Recycling Solutions is the trading name of Bollegraaf Recycling Machinery bv and Lubo Systems bv. With a track record of 50+ years in the industry, Bollegraaf is a leading global engineer and manufacturer of turnkey recycling solutions and recycling equipment. Your business is our challenge, we aim to give you the highest return on investment. From Municipal Solid Waste to Plastics recycling, you name it, we know how to sort it. scan for more i n f o r m a t i o n +31 (0)596 65 43 33 info@bollegraaf.com Want to know more? Please be invited to visit one of our reference projects or our high-tech production facilities. CEO Bollegraaf Country: UK - Capacity: 18 tonnes/hr. – Footprint: - 1.775 m 2 - Input: commingled, mixed dry recyclables NEWS July 2014 Local Authority Waste & Recycling 5 FOR MORE NEWS AND ANALYSIS VISIT www.edie.net /waste Waste consultancy Eunomia has reiterated its claim that the UK will have too much waste infrastructure capacity to treat waste by 2018/19. Eunomia's latest figures come in the sixth edition of its bi-annual Residual Waste Infrastructure Review, which was published last month. The report draws upon data from local authorities' annual WasteDataFlow returns, data on commercial and industrial waste made available by Defra, and Eunomia's own database of residual waste facilities operating and under development in the UK. It focuses on waste which is suitable for treatment at residual waste treatment plants including incinerators, mechanical biological treatment (MBT) and gasification plants. The latest issue of the report, published last month, estimates that around 5.7m tonnes of treatment capacity is currently under construction, which once completed will give the UK a total treatment capacity of around 17m tonnes per annum. Eunomia also estimates that planning permission has been granted for a further 20.8m tonnes per annum of treatment capacity, while planning consent for a further 4.1m tonnes of treatment capacity is being sought. And, the consultancy claims that even if no further facilities reach financial close the UK would reach a situation of overcapacity of around 0.5 million tonnes by 2018/19. Adam Baddeley, the report's lead author said residual treatment capacity continues to grow "at great speed". Waste overcapacity warning New vision for joint waste service proposed Four councils in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire are proposing set- ting up a jointly-owned company to deliver frontline services, such as waste collections, in a bid to save money. Leaders from Cotswold, Forest of Dean and West Oxfordshire District Councils and Cheltenham Borough Council set out the plan in their '2020 Vision for Joint Working' report, which was pub- lished in late May. It has been sent out to each council's Cabinet for consideration. Specifically, the report propos- es employing "a small number of expert advisors… either from the private and voluntary sectors or from local authority-owned service delivery companies" to commission and monitor the services provided to approximately 400,000 residents, such as waste collection, manage- ment, and auditing. However, the partnership stresses that each local authority will continue to "set poli- cies and make decisions in the best interest of their residents and com- munities". The plans have been brought about following central govern- ment cuts, and aim to "transform the way… services run in order to deliver more efficiency savings and protect public services". The councils estimate that, if approved, the joint working could save them more than £55 million over ten years through "reductions in operational costs arising from reduced management and staffing costs", and "protect valued front- line services, whilst [enabling them to] remain as independent authori- ties with their own elected council- lors representing local people". Speaking about the plans, Councillor Lynden Stowe, Leader of Cotswold District Council, said: "The proposition set out in this report represents perhaps the most radical joint working approach in local government today. It is a prop- er, considered response to a chal- lenge not only of how to best use a smaller and reducing public subsidy but also how to make best use of technology, how to encourage and use a competitive market, and how to make smart use of managerial and other expertise. "However, our proposals should also be seen as a natural and logi- cal progression along an innova- tive transformational agenda which the councils have been delivering over recent years. We should take great encouragement from what has already been achieved." Monthly bin collections mooted FILLING A HOLE - Veolia and Nottinghamshire County Council invited the county's residents to a free lunch last month. The 'Feed the 1,000' challenge was held in Mansfield to highlight the amount of food wasted by families in the UK every year and to help people to save money. Torfaen County Borough Council in Wales has proposed a series of chang- es to its collection services, including the possibility of monthly collec- tions, to try to meet national recy- cling targets for household waste. The local authority says it needs to up its recycling rate from 52% to 58% to meet new Welsh Government targets. Other options include keeping the current fortnightly wheelie bin col- lection or a change to limiting house- holds to two refuse bags each. Last month Gwynedd Council agreed to move to three-weekly col- lections for black bag waste. Councils in Wales faces fines of £100,000 for every 1% they fall below the recycling rate targets intro- duced by the Welsh Government for 2015/16. Torfaen Council collects around 40,000 black bags every two weeks but the local authority says it must do more if it is to escape the potential fines. Councillor John Cunningham, executive member for neighbour- hood services, said Torfaen had made reductions in the amount of waste it sent to landfill and its recycling rates were increasing, but not fast enough. Four councils plan 'radical' joint waste service to save £55m

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