Agency retains cautionary approach to leaf litter

The Environment Agency is retaining a cautionary approach to the composting of leaf litter from streets following a trial involving four local authorities in Wales.

Earlier this year, the Agency published guidancestating that street sweepings and gully emptying were not suitable for composting or anaerobic digestion because they often contain non-biodegradable waste (see letsrecycle.com story). The Agency said it would update this position in the autumn following trials involving four local authorities in Wales.

However, the trials revealed raised levels of heavy metals such as nickel, copper and chromium and other contaminants, leading the Agency to issued updated guidance this month explaining that its position is unchanged. A report on the full findings of the trials can be found here.

The decision comes as a blow to many local authorities who will now be forced to send their leaf fall to landfill or mechanical biological treatment and who fear their recycling rates may suffer. One local authority told letsrecycle.com: We expect our recycling rate to fall by up to 2% as a result of this and there are huge cost implications with regards to landfill tax.

The updated Environment Agency guidance states: Due to the potential for contamination our current guidance is that dedicated street cleansing collections of untreated leaf litter should not be used as feedstock for composting or used as feedstock to produce quality compost.

We wanted to review our position and gather information about whether this waste could be suitable for composting and, therefore, spreading to land. We conducted a limited trial involving four local authorities in Wales.

The outcomes from this trial signal the need for a precautionary approach to composting of this waste. This is due to the presence of metals such as nickel, copper, chromium, molybdenum, zinc and other contaminants. Our current guidance therefore remains unchanged.

Trials

In a bid to gather more data, the Association for Organics Recycling is now working with the Environment Agency to carry out a much wider number of trials this Autumn. Around12 local authorities have already expressed an interest.

Jeremy Jacobs, managing director of AfOR, said: We want as many people as possible toparticipate inthese trials and gather a data set to establish whetherthis is just amountain out of a mole hill or if there is an issue. A significant amount of waste could go to landfill as a result of this. We are hoping to start the trials in the next couple of weeks as the leaves start falling off the trees.

Hopefully we can come up with some evidence that is beneficial.

Joy Blizzard, chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC),which represents local authority recycling officers, welcomed the further research.

She said: Anything that adds to costs for local authorities is a concern but that has to be balanced with protecting the environment so I am pleased that the Environment Agency is carrying out further trials.