Mr Bradshaw was speaking at the opening of North London's largest composting plant on Thursday (see letsrecycle.com story).
 Local environment minister Ben Bradshaw has spoken out in favour of centralised composting facilities |
The current consultation on England's Waste Strategy has seen Defra acknowledging a view that current statutory performance standards can have a “perverse incentive” with regard to collection rates.
But Mr Bradshaw called food waste and green waste “enormous environmental headaches”, and welcomed the use of government funding for centralised composting facilities.
Resources
Mr Bradshaw said: “Food and garden waste can create enormous environmental headaches. It forms a large chunk of our household waste and when sent to landfill it creates methane, a greenhouse gas over 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. It is also a waste of valuable resources.
“Therefore I'm delighted to see government funding forming the starting block for a new strategic facility supported by both the surrounding boroughs and the community sector,” the minister added.
Mr Bradshaw called the new composting facility in the London borough of Enfield an “excellent demonstration” of partnership working and the use of final product. The 5 million centre has been built and is to be operated by Agrivert Ltd on behalf of LondonWaste Ltd and the North London Waste Authority.
The Authority said it is promoting the use of home composting to cut the amount of waste put out for centralised collections. However, it revealed to letsrecycle.com that three more composting plants, which are likely to be larger in scale than the Edmonton plant, are in the pipeline for North London.
Andrew Lappage, head of waste strategy and contracts, said the Edmonton facility was “merely dipping a foot in the water”.
New services
Meanwhile, the Spring is bringing with it a host of new and extended green waste collection services as local authorities continue to strive towards government-set landfill diversion targets for biodegradable waste.
Among councils investing in centralised collections are Wigan, which is offering green waste collections to 40,000 more households to double the size of its scheme, while residents in Swindon are being offered a free green waste collection service to replace a scheme in which they paid 1 for each bag collected.
Householders in the Wirral – part of the Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority – are being offered the council's first-ever large scale organic waste collection service. About 20,000 homes will be on the scheme, using the Authority's in-vessel composting plant in Bidston.
David Green the council's director of technical services, said the service would “pave the way” to reach its recycling targets. “We're trying in Wirral, but still have a long way to go as last year we only recycled 10%,” he said.
Sunderland
Councils that have already been collecting green waste are also acting to strengthen their efforts in the new growing season. Sunderland council, already offering over 60,000 gardeners a recycling service, has recently extended its collection scheme to a further 1,000 homes, stating that green waste still “accounts for a huge percentage of the waste which is taken to landfill”.
Slough council is holding special events to give away free bags of compost made from green waste collected in the borough. The council said 8,500 residents have now signed up to its green waste scheme, and new collection containers are on their way to increase the amount collected even further.
Sarah Bryan, community recycling officer, said: “The amount of garden waste being collected has gone up year on year, and soon we will be introducing green wheelie bins to everyone who is part of the scheme to make things even easier for them.”
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