Agency warns of using street sweepings in compost

The Environment Agency has written to all composters in England and Wales to warn them against using street sweepings and gully waste residues to produce compost.

The Agency will now be carrying out a desktop audit of the waste types accepted at all sites in future, to ensure that only appropriate feedstocks are accepted.

In the letter sent on August 6, the Agency warned that compost produced from street sweepings and gully waste residues is not suitable for producing quality compost and would always remain a waste, meaning it cannot be spread on agricultural land or sold as compost.

The communication follows the publication of guidance in May 2012 in which the Agency clarified how street sweepings and gully emptying waste can be treated and disposed of correctly at permitted sites.

The Agency letter says: Street sweeping waste and gully empting residues are not regarded as suitable wastes for composting sites without suitable pre-treatment. They are not classed as a source segregated waste and are not listed in the Compost Quality Protocol (CQP) as a suitable waste to produce quality compost (this includes waste produced to PAS100 standard). Compost produced from these wastes will be regarded as a Compost-Like Ouput (CLO) and will always remain a waste. This CLO cannot got to agricultural land or be sent to bagging plants.

It adds: We will be carrying out a desktop audit of the waste types accepted at all compost sites in future to ensure that only appropriate wastes are being accepted into composting processes.

Contaminants

Gully emptyings are the residue collected from chambers at the side of roads which are covered by metal grails and often lead to sewers. They require dewatering and the remaining material often has a high water content and can contain heavy metals and other physical contaminants and high leachable organic content.

Street sweepings, meanwhile, can be more mixed, drier materials, including leaves, grit, litter, glass, oil and plastics. They can also contain heavy metals and have a high leachable organic content.

The Agency guidance explains that both types of material are not suitable for composting because they contain non-biodegradable material and contaminants which will not be treated by composting plants or anaerobic digestion facilities alone. Instead, it said they should be sent to mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants which are permitted to take them.

While most composting and AD sites are not permitted to take in this material, the Agency guidance explains that it is aware of some who are permitted to do so. It said: We will work with operators to review permits for these facilities.

In the guidance, the Agency adds that dedicated leaf collections in the Autumn and early winter which mainly consist of leaves are also not acceptable for composting, as they can also contain contaminants. It adds: However, we have recently been running trials to assess whether seasonal leaf litter from street cleansing, particularly in rural areas, may be composted. We intend to revise our guidance prior to Autumn 2012 when we have more information from the trials.

Local authorities

As a result of the guidance, local authorities sending street sweepings and gully emptying residues for composting will be required to send the material to alternative outlets, including MBT, incineration and landfill.

According to the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), a number of local authorities have already raised concerns about the guidance. The organisation confirmed this week that it is gathering evidence from members about the likely impact this would have on council waste management costs.

In a statement issued earlier this year, LARAC said: A number of local authorities have recently contacted LARAC expressing their concerns on the new guidance and its likely financial and performance impact for their authority.

Problematic

Trelawney Dampney, managing director of organic waste processor Eco Sustainable Solutions, based in Dorset, claimed that the guidance was likely to be problematic for local authorities and criticised the timescale over which the changes were implemented.

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, he said: I read through the guidance and the Agency said that it would be working with operators to put a time period in place. For our customers who include local authorities this has caused a lot of anguish.

I can accept the change in the rules but I am against them saying that they will work the industry and then dropping it on us without warning. We have had to ring our local authority customers to tell them that we can no longer take the material.

Recycling

SITA UK operates a street sweepings recycling facility in the Midlands where organic waste recovered from its recovery process is sent for composting to be used in land remediation.

The company has confirmed that it is currently carrying out discussions with the Environment Agency over how the guidance will impact its operations.

Chris Male, the companys regional processing manager, said: We are having discussions with the Environment Agency about the guidance and how this will affect our operations at Neachells Lane and the products.