Today's appointment sees Mike Walker take up the position of director of policy and public affairs. Mr Walker brings with him a wide range of experience in industry and trade associations, including a period with the water industry association, Water UK.
Dirk Hazell, chief executive of the ESA, said: “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Mike Walker to this important post. He brings skills and experience which will be of great use to us all. The appointment and the development of our policy unit reflects the ongoing rebalancing of the ESA towards the generation and promotion of positive policies in the interest of members' and high standards of waste management.”
Mr Hazell, referring to the work by the government's PIU unit, added that the appointment comes at “an exceptionally formative time for the industry.”
Criticisms
The ESA's involvement with News International comes after the publication of a long article in The Sunday Times on March 10 which made several criticisms of the industry. It was called “The wasting disease: the national trash can is running over” and raised concerns about waste management practice. Biffa development director, Peter Jones, who is mentioned several times in the article, said he welcomed the coverage and said it is the first step to moving waste up the agenda.
In a letter to the newspaper group's chairman, which was passed to letsrecycle.com by an industry source, the chief executive of the ESA, said: “The standard of environmental coverage in The Times and The Sunday Times is not what it should be and the article in the 10 March edition is particularly inapposite. The article is not constructive but is essentially ill-informed whinge.
“ESA’s Members provide an essential service for society. They do not deserve articles of this type. ESA’s Members are not the problem but are an essential and constructive part of the UK’s environmental solution.”
Mr Hazell also commented on News International's environmental policy and asked why plastic wrapping is used for parts of the paper. Mr Hazell called on the company to put its environmental policy in the public domain and said: “With what externally audited environmental standards does News International in general and The Sunday Times in particular comply? Where are News International companies’ environmental performance statements to be found on corporate websites?”
Popularise
But Mr Jones said that the article was important because by popularising the issue, the public starts to see waste as part of their everyday lives. He said: “At last the media is taking a more broad ranging and analytical approach to the challenges confronting society. Society has been living off the fruits of the land for the last 200 years. In the next 30 years we will reap the whirlwind unless we address certain fundamental issues about how we price the value of the eco-system to which we form part. The Sunday Times article was a start on the road to this. We have to popularise this issue and put it in the context of everybody's everyday experience.”
Register for free to comment