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A conference
hosted by the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management attempted
to tackle that very issue on Thursday, January 12.
Defra's
Anton van Santen told delegates British policy makers were partly to
blame, and had sent out rather confused messages over the years.
While the importance of recycling and recovery had of course
been recognised and promoted, he said, there was still little
incentive to turn words into action as it was still cheaper to
landfill waste than deal with it in a more sustainable fashion.
"We landfill 75% of our waste while other countries are
landfilling less than 5%," he said.
"So what can we learn
and what is the relevance of the lessons we can learn today to our
forward planning?"
According to consultancy SLR, publisher
of the new report Delivering Key Waste Management Infrastructure:
Lessons Learned from Europe, quite a lot.
Over the space
of several months a team from the consultancy visited numerous waste
management sites on the continent and looked at how culture, local
needs and historical practices had shaped development of national
and regional strategies.
The analysis showed a sharp
contrast between those who were succeeding - including several
countries which had already met their targets set by the EU for 2016
- and those which were struggling to get past the culture of
landfill.
In many cases, it was public perception of waste
that had allowed progress to be made.
The Danish, for
example, welcome the construction of waste for energy plants on
their doorstep for the cheap energy and heating they bring rather
than fight them tooth and nail through fear of blight and pollution
as the British might.
Meanwhile, by pricing landfill out of
the market with hefty taxes the Austrians have forced regional
authorities and industry to look at other ways to deal with waste.
"One of the overriding conclusions we came up with was that
there is no single approach or system in place across Europe," said
SLR director Andy Street.
"But what we did find was that the
best performers have been doing it for ten or 15 years and are ahead
of the game.
"There is a firm political commitment and
action has been taken to ensure the right bits of infrastructure are
in the right place at the right time.
"Legislative measures
are consistent with the waste hierarchy and encourage recycling,
recovery and reuse and discourage landfill.
"With the poorer
performers there has been a lack of an integrated approach therefore
a lack of certainty and clarity for industry."
The UK is
making progress, concludes the report, but is still playing
catch-up.
In order to join Europe's top table of waste
management several changes still need to be made, argues SLR.
First there must be alternative ways of financing projects
such as prudential-style borrowing to make them more attractive to
both investors and operators.
Second, regional planning
authorities need to be given a clear mandate to lead waste
strategies, thus distancing local politicians from potentially
unpopular decisions and putting an end to the 'not our problem'
culture that exists in some parts of local government in the UK.
Third, there should be a clear and consistent compensation
system in place for those living near planned facilities to sweeten
what can be a bitter pill.
And finally, there needs to be
more joined up thinking with municipal solid waste and non-hazardous
industrial waste considered together, rather than as entirely
separate entities.
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Source: edie
newsroom |
