AD uptake among top targets in EA corporate strategy

Preventing waste crime, handling and disposing of hazardous waste and diverting more biodegradable waste from landfill are also among the waste-related priorities in the Environment Agency's ‘Corporate Strategy for 2010-2015',which was unveiled at its annual conference, 'Environment '09' in London.

The strategy, which was hailed as “ambitious” by the Agency, also covers action on flooding, low-carbon initiatives, business compliance and the EA's own carbon footprint along with waste and recycling.

In the document, the Agency said that government targets for diverting waste from landfill would mean “more recovery facilities are needed” in England and Wales and it also said it wanted to see more biodegradable waste being turned into energy and soil conditioners through “greater uptake of anaerobic digestion”.

Anaerobic digestion (AD) has appeared regularly as one of the government's favoured methods for energy generation from waste, with a £10 million fund being launched in April this year to help stimulate its uptake (see letsrecycle.com story).

Strategy

Also in the strategy document, the Environment Agency said that the UK had made “good progress” towards achieving a municipal waste recycling rate of 53% by 2010, exceeded its WEEE collection target for 2008 with its 2009 interim results looking “even better” and reduced waste to landfill.

Commenting on the strategy, Liz Parkes, head of waste and resources, said: “Good progress is being made towards municipal waste and packaging recovery targets. Regulated companies have also reduced the amount of waste they produce by 14% since 2005. But more can be done.”

Ms Parkes claimed more could be done and said the total environmental costs of waste sent to landfill and incinerators in the UK rather than being recycled was £336 million last year. She said that by using resources more efficiently in the future, UK companies could save around £6.4 billion a year.

In addition, Ms Parkes praised collaborative work done by the Agency and WRAP to produce Quality Protocols on a range of materials – which identify when waste materials are no longer class as waste and are able to be reused.

The development of the Protocols could help divert 17 million tonnes of waste from landfill and save 14 million tonnes of raw materials, Ms Parkes claimed.

However, hazardous waste was seen as an area of concern. Despite work to restrict co-disposal and mixing pits, the strategy said progress towards meeting the its target of reducing hazardous waste disposal to 533,000 tonnes per year for the next five years was “fairly static” and claimed “additional, urgent action [is] required to meet or maintain target”.

Copenhagen

Also speaking at the event, chairman of the Environment Agency, Lord Chris Smith, spoke about the forthcoming talks on climate change in Copenhagen and the impact they could have on waste.

Lord Smith, who focussed on the issue of capping and trading schemes for carbon, also said he hoped that delegates at the conference in Denmark would discuss ways of encouraging “international research to find new ways of producing energy, running transport and dealing with waste”.