A wasted strategy?

The word strategy originated from the management of entire armies operating as a single, organic whole. Unfortunately in government the process has been allowed to be developed in vertical chimneys of departmental initiatives which, in the case of waste, has been particularly damaging because the end life resources issue stretches across these competing ministerial fiefdoms.

This Review was dogged by the fallout from efforts by DCLG to railroad the process without reference to evidence, science or economic realities.

If DCLG had really wanted to make a mark it might more rationally have argued the case for transferring the cost of managing packaging and a range of other post-consumer products back to the retail checkouts via proper Producer Responsibility, with local authorities then being paid to manage waste on behalf of the inward supply chain.

This would reduce the spend on waste in the Public Sector by up to 1 billion annually. Having allowed Eric Pickles to drive his tractor over her lawn on an initiative that would have cost taxpayers, it is regrettable that Caroline Spelman was not allowed to drive hers over his for a substantial saving to local authorities and a considerably more efficient resultant logistics infrastructure than that offered by 360-odd waste collection authorities (WCAs).

Low level initiatives

Instead, we have a pot pourri of fairly low level initiatives with a smattering of the usual Zero Waste jargon. Why dont the government realise we are on this journey with waste for two simple reasons?

First, to achieve improvements in resource efficiency across product supply chains in an economy where 60 million tonnes of annual product sales consume over one billion tonnes of inputs globally. Second, to do so by reducing emissions of global warming-gases from the business of managing what we decide to throw away.

That overarching process demands far greater commitment to mapping those material flows and confirming a single set of protocols to measure emissions across the end management cycle of collection, material condition and final reuse as a substitute for non renewables. In the Review? A nod to Scotlands lead but no sense of urgency or deadlines.

Coherent approach

Without those protocols there is no coherent approach to tackling high embedded carbon products and processes that lie at the heart of resource profligacy in a world where, each year, the Chinese, Indian and South Americans contribute the equivalent of the EU population to the global consuming bourgeoisie. We start with wood and ignore aluminium.

In the case of waste, future investment needs to be underpinned by long term certainty around carbon pricing and penalties but the rag bag of sticks and carrots highlighted in Select Committee reports on the Energy/Electricity Market Review are ignored or downplayed in the headline announcements.

Until we have taxes on all Gigajoules of energy fuels and taxes on gaseous emissions of fuel conversion processes (starting with carbon dioxide) the contribution of waste conversion to the generation of electricity, gas, heat or transport fuels remains a lottery of confusing financial incentives operated by a Government with a firm track record in applying the Law of Unintended Consequences and then pulling the plug.

Spatial demand

Last, but by no means least, there appears to be no concerted effort to tackle the fact that the new waste infrastructure needed to replace landfill will have a spatial demand of up to five times the landtake – of the order of an additional 15,000 hectares to match the similar landtake of the inbound product supply chain for a similar 60 million tonnes.

Planning for these new facilities is in disarray and there is no effort to implement transparent, consultative approaches – despite examples being around that have won plaudits from the professional planners themselves. Instead those risks and failures are left firmly with developers with politicians heading for cover at the first opportunity.

One cannot but be left with the impression that this Review is a worthy successor to the previous four wish lists – high on aspiration and weak on delivery. All one can do is await the next in line around 2014 when, perhaps finally, almost 15 years of false dawns will lead to the slow motion crash that awaits as landfills finally close their doors.