The United Kingdom (UK) has traditionally used landfill disposal as the main method of waste management. However, it has long been recognised that landfilling is unsustainable due to its long term harmful effects on the environment and public health.

Landfill also places a high long term risk on groundwater quality, which could threaten the availability of clean water for future generations.

Under the European Union (EU) Landfill Directive, and starting in 2006, member nations were required to divert biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfills. The UK has also committed to the EU Renewable Energy Directive, which binds it to sourcing at least 15% of its energy mix from renewables by 2020.

Through the last decade the emphasis was on recycling, and this is still the case, but recycling will only achieve waste diversion up to a point. Therefore, to meet these targets, the UK is developing alternative waste management options as well as planning to achieve considerable deployment of renewables.

Throughout 2009 a number of aspects of UK waste management policy that have been in place for some time came together so that for the first time a genuine shift in the industry could be detected. Investors began to see the wisdom of those that have already anticipated this new vision and have committed to investment in the waste technologies, as many of the smaller more nimbly operators have begun to make profits. Where profit is to be made others will now follow to secure waste contracts for the resource that collected material provides them.

If asked what the single biggest influence on this was during 2009, I would say it as the government’s Landfill Tax escalator policy which meant that for most waste disposers, for the first time, landfill disposal actually became more expensive than recycling. You can argue around the detail here, but I had not before the summer of 2009 witnessed recycling companies able to say they could offer price competitive disposal prices when head to head with the traditional landfill operators.

Another major driving force in UK waste management which is powering the evolution from a disposal problem to a resource optimisation opportunity are the high targets for waste diversion from landfill, and 20 year or longer integrated waste management contracts. These are public/private partnership projects which the UK government is pushing ahead with now in order to achieve those targets.

Here to, we saw a major milestone achieved while the recession was biting the hardest early in 2009. This was the successful planning application, and award of contract, for the £4 billion Greater Manchester Waste PFI Contract, the largest of its kind in Europe, and all built upon stakeholder involvement. However, the Greater Manchester PFI Contract is only the most high profile example of a procurement revolution which probably reached its peak of activity during 2009, and saw similar contracts either largely in place or planned throughout the nation.

The year also saw a number of these projects hit the headlines, and some Energy from Waste schemes being pushed back at planning (Cornwall and Edinburgh for example).

However, the trend continued and accelerated so that for all waste streams and/or locations where re-use or recycling of waste is not viable, energy recovery is being reinforced as the preferred option, with disposal used only as a last resort.

For a long while the major Energy from Waste producer has been from landfills, and it has been landfill gas (LFG) utilisation. However, the relative importance to LFG utilisation as a proportion of total energy from waste production will now be expected to decline.

Each month in the years to come we will see the rollout of new energy from waste (EfW) projects coming on-stream. However, while the adoption of new waste technologies is being supported in the UK by government departments, the perceived high risk for the PFI partnerships, has remained high. 2009 was not good for implementing the more innovative of these.

The increased cautiousness of the banks funding the private element of these projects has come at a very unfortunate time, as it has in my view severely detracted against the bankability of schemes using these new technologies. In fact, 2009 saw the shelving of quite a number of the more adventurous new waste technology options in favour of more traditional incineration technology.

During the year events also reinforced the wisdom of encouraging the use of EfW and other home grown renewable energy source, within the global scene. Most will remember that early in 2009 we saw the deep rationing of natural gas supplies to some European nations which were themselves unconnected with a producer country dispute. This held up supplies during the coldest weather and in a completely arbitrary fashion.

Most now strongly support the benefits of renewable energy for its improved energy supply security, ability to provide climate change mitigation when combined with stiff recycling targets and the highest possible waste diversion, and not least its resource efficiency.

However, good though that may be for waste as an opportunity, the main event of the year was the new found security to the recyclers which came with the attainment of the economic tipping point, whereby landfilling has become more expensive than most forms of main stream recycling activity. From now on the markets in recyclates will operate on a progressively more stable and normal economic basis.

Recycling has always made sense for the environment, but from now on it will also become a natural economically favourable option as well We can also look forward to the future knowing that the landfill tax will rise again in April 2010, taking us further into the new UK era of waste as a resource of opportunity.

Sponsored by the Teton Conservation District and BioCycle magazine, this three-day conference:

ORGANIC WASTE DIVERSION IN THE ROCKIES
will focus on

Economics, Operations and Marketing

The Conference is being held at the
Snow King Resort in Jackson, Wyoming
July 19-22, 2009

Here is your opportunity to network and learn from the experienced, knowledgeable faculty of speakers who will discuss how to successfully implement diversion programs when markets are distant; integrating new programs with existing infrastructure; and developing markets for woody biomass.

Speakers like:
Randy Williams, Teton Conservation District; Mark Barron, Mayor,Town of Jackson, Wyoming;
Kathy O’Hern, Gallatin County (Montana)/West Yellowstone Composting Facility; Chuck Wilson and Bob Yost, A1 Organics; Phil Hayes, Pinetop/Lake (Arizona) Sanitary District; Nora Goldstein, BioCycle; Jerry Wright, Rapid City, South Dakota Public Works Department; Kate Blevins, Verde Earth Works; Roy Petermean, Brigham Young University; Jonathan Schechter, One Percent for the Tetons; Dane Buk, Terra Firma Organics; Steve Michael, Jackson Whole Grocer; Laura Cuddy, Four Seasons Resort; Bruce Fullford, City Soil and Greenhouse;
Dave Atkins, Fuels for Schools, US Forest Service Northern and Intermountain Regions;
Al Christophersen, Director of Habitat Stewardship Services, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation … and many more.

Where else can you talk face to face with experts like these to help you find ways to turn organic materials into valuable resources?

Conference sessions will be held on Monday and Tuesday, July 20 and 21 at the Snow King Resort. Monday’s program opens at 8:30 am with sessions on MSW and biosolids composting and collection, processing and marketing of recyclable materials. On Monday Afternoon , from 1 – 5:00 pm, participants will tour Jackson Community Recycling Center and the Teton Country Transfer Station and Compost Facility, returning to the hotel for a Reception in the Exhibit area.

On Tuesday, July 21, sessions will cover composting, woody biomass, food waste composting, anaerobic digestion of animal waste, food waste recycling in resorts and parks, and much more.

An optional tour of Yellowstone National Park recycling and composting facilities will be held on Wednesday, July 22, from 7:30 am – 5:30 pm.

And on Sunday, July 19, there is an optional Workshop, “Foundations of Composting Training,” from 8:00 am – 4:30 pm. Instructors Robert Rynk of State University of New York Cobleskill, and Matt Cotton of Integrated Waste Management Consulting, will provide a foundation for novice compost operators, managers and regulators, and will refresh veteran composters on the underlying scientific principles, helping prepare for expanded job responsibilities, managerial duties and certification requirements.

REGISTER BY JUNE 5 TO GET EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT HERE.

At the Wasters blog we started the year by reporting the gap between Ireland’s actual rates of recycling and waste diversion away from landfill, and the target requirements. It seems that Ireland will need to speed up its progress or soon face fines from the EU for failing to comply with the targets set up in the Landfill Directive.

This contrasted strongly against stories of success from the United Kingdom which were posted on our blog throughout the year. In fact, the Environment Secretary for Scotland announced ambitious plans to exceed the EU targets, for waste management in Scotland. The new targets amount to 60 percent recycling by 2020 and 70 percent by 2025. Also, incineration received a knock as a part of this plan, when it became clear that no more than 25 percent of waste is to be used to generate energy. The ultimate target is that they will reduce municipal waste being sent to landfill to just 5 percent by 2025. That is quite a target to go for! Especially as the easy option of incineration will be severely capped.

All the time last year, new announcements of new waste collection and massive investment in waste and secondary resource processing facilities planned were being made by the big five waste management companies, and indeed newcomers to the PFI Contracts, especially for the very large big-city contracts.

At the start of the year all were surprised that the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) was still in extended negotiation for its PFI Contract. In March we were told that they would very soon be announcing the award. However, the end of April arrived before there was a further delay announced. Even now the deal is not resolved.

Of course, all large contract negotiations are suffering from the much tougher bank lending rules which have been in place since the credit crunch really began to bite in the summer. The contractors bidding have found that the banks have been pulling back on their borrowing and at the very least their interest rates will have no doubt been revised. At a contract value in the region of reported £3 billion, and said to be the largest municipal waste contract in Europe, the GMWDA deal must be extremely hard to clinch.

The latest News (from LetsRecycle.com) about the Manchester PFI contract, at the start of December was that the banks were completing final formalities with a hoped for Christmas signing. The Waster has not seen an announcement so far, so we will hopefully receive the good news as one of the first events in the UK waste management scene in 2009!

The Manchester contract, and many others, need signing soon and then to move into the construction stage for the new facilities planned and much needed in order for the UK recycling and waste diversion targets to be met in the years to come.

One of the highlights for the Waster (who has been described as “born to landfill”) was a German research paper reported in April to be recommending the use of landfill as a carbon sink, as in carbon sequestration/storage. The posting was titled “Carbon Storage – A Renaissance for Landfill?”. How refreshing it was for a landfill lover like the Waster to be told that landfilling should be increased and encouraged and certainly not reduced. Wonderful! More of it please!

Autumn news showed the waste industry to be remarkably resilient to the economic slowdown, although landfill operators were, and still are, reporting the current remarkable rarity of once ever-present construction waste vehicles arriving at their landfill gates.

Of course part of the reduction might be due to better management of waste at the construction sites themselves, and in particular this may have had a small effect after the introduction, in the spring by the UK government, of a new legal requirement. The new rule is that all large construction sites produce Site Waste Management Plans (SWMPs) for every site from now on.

However, the lack of much SWMP activity reportedly being seen from the construction industry in setting up these plans shows that it is the economic slowdown rather than much better construction site waste minimisation and recycling that is the predominant effect here!

All in all, the UK waste management industry continues in the path set for it by the politicians in the 1986 Maastricht Treaty. Don’t forget that ALL EU member nation policy on waste-related legislation is derived from the EU commission and through qualified majority voting (unanimity in these matters is a thing of the past). The Waster is UK based and from his point of view the waste legislation has nothing directly to do with public health or environmental health issues in the UK.

In effect this means that the degree to which EU targets are set and goals derived make no allowance for national differences, bear no relationship to what might be more or less sustainable from a climate change perspective, and make no allowance for cost/benefit to local communities.

The Waster’s view is that this is nowhere more obvious than in the last of the big news events of the year. That is the autumn’s big and ever-rising cost of recycling due to the economic slowdown. How can it be right that policy is so inflexible that the ratepayers have to pick up whatever bill the waste industry incurs when the raw materials price falls through the floor?

In any other market there would be a market self-correction when the recyclers reduced their output to match the value gained from the recycled materials. In fact, the recycling market is bound to create these huge fluctuations as it is so distorted by inflexible EU policy.

As the Waster has been around for a long time, he continues to see it as remarkable that the current waste policies have lasted for as long as they have in their current form and ever increasingly are being built with huge investment into the fabric of our nation.

The concern must be how well technically they are based, when MBT in all its forms is put forward as better than incineration by our policy makers. Given public hostility in the UK to incineration it may be convenient to neglect the fact that no proper primary research has been done into the long-term impacts of MBT residues which receive only scant drying or composting treatment in order to declassify them from being organic waste. This allows this supposedly processed material to be sent to landfill without, on paper, contributing the the organic waste sent to landfill. This must surely be bending the rules beyond the point of forgiveness, purely for convenience?

Furthermore, why all the obsession we see with the carbon cycle within the waste regulators and impacts – to the almost complete neglect of consideration of the nitrogen cycle?

Both must be got right for a healthy environment and both need very careful consideration. However, the Waster is not aware of any recent research into the fate of nitrogen from waste residues, which he considers must be highly neglectful.

As we said earlier, the Waster does have a long memory, and he does remember that the UK only signed up to the Landfill Directive after resisting doing so for 11 years, in exchange for a deal with the Spanish on fishing quotas!

We did not know then what that had to do with sound waste management or environmental protection, and that has not changed.

So, the Waster will continue through 2009 to take a critical view of the waste scene as it implements EU legislation, and will plea for ALL aspects of policy to be founded on sound principles, rather than embarking on huge investments in waste technology in waste processing without good research to back up politically convenient theory.

Those were the main issues for the Wastersblog in 2008, and that ends our look back at the year 2008.

Your comments on this blog posting will, as always, be highly welcomed. Don’t be shy – comment away! (Email me direct if you have any problems with the commenting system on the blog site. All previous problems you might have experienced with the comments system have been rectified.)

The Waster would like to take this opportunity to wish all his readers a happy and prosperous new year.