David Beadle warned waste prevention targets are not ambitious enough following his inauguration as president of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management in London yesterday (October 15).
Mr Beadle, who accepted the post from outgoing president John Skidmore in front of some 140 guests at the House of Commons, has 32 years experience in the waste industry and has served as director of North London Waste Authority since 2009.
In his speech he called on the government to set waste prevention targets, criticising the recent Defra consultation on its waste prevention programme which put too much responsibility onto others and failed to reflect the role of government.
Mr Beadle went on to highlight waste crime, health and safety, and the dangerously untrodden territory of commercial and industrial waste as key issues he would address during his tenure.
CIWM is also set to publish a report by consultancy Ricardo-AEA on C&I waste in the coming days, which will warn that a failure to secure feedstocks and build C&I infrastructure could lead to an infrastructure gap of up to 15 million tonnes per year of wastes from businesses in the UK and Ireland.
The report will argue that the data available publicly on C&I waste is poor and patchy, and hard to compare from source to source. Ongoing feedstock uncertainty, it suggests, will endanger the scope for financers, planners, and industry operators to make robust decisions.
Infrastructure
Additionally, calling on the industry to work together to address these challenges, Mr Beadle said that CIWM will be supporting electronic duty of care as a valuable tool for data collection in the future, while also taking a lead in developing best practice to ensure a more consistent approach to forecasting.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com after his inauguration, Mr Beadle also cited the difficulty in developing energy-from-waste projects as an issue holding the industry back.
‘I hope that CIWM during my year can make some progress and bring people together.’
David Beadle, CIWM president
He said: Coming in as the new president I feel there is a question of what to do in waste management and resources and some leadership is needed. That leadership can come in the form of establishing targets.
We know EfW is difficult to get planning for but in an era when we know there will be more blackouts why arent we making more use of these opportunities? I hope that CIWM during my year can make some progress and bring people together.
Commenting on the inauguration, CIWM chief executive Steve Lee said: We are delighted to welcome David as CIWM President 2013/14. He brings a wealth of both public and private sector experience to the role and his strong focus on improving the investment landscape for waste facilities and on skills and education will help to inform CIWMs important work in these areas over the coming year.
Furniture Re-Use
Meanwhile, the Furniture Re-Use Network, which was invited to make a guest speech at the ensuing annual presidential dinner, suggested there is solvable resource poverty in the UK, and called on the government to better understand the re-use sector.
Speaking to guests at the event, FRN chief executive officer Craig Anderson said there was no need for high quality products to go to landfill when low income families were struggling to make payments, and asked the government to support access to millions of household waste items.
He said: The demand is there. Poverty and austerity mean that the urgent need for these goods is not going away and we need to stop wasting when others have nothing. The crazy reality is that today, to meet that need, our sector is having to source new products to help these families.
He added: With a little action on waste we can make a big impact and big saving for the poorest in our society.
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