“Clear messages” required on need for waste plants

Speaking this week (July 21) at an Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (ASPRG) event in London, the Planning Officers Society (POS) said that there was “genuine concern” over the current lack of public understanding over the need for waste treatment facilities.

The association claimed that the government needed to communicate the positive economic impact of major developments as well as the energy generation benefits of energy-from-waste plants.

Richard Read, chairman of the minerals and waste committee at the POS, said: “The big stakeholder in all this is the public and here we have got some really big challenges. There is a big misunderstanding about the need for recycling and waste infrastructure.”

“What can we do about this? Well we need some very clear messages from government that waste infrastructure is a priority and without it the economy will struggle and we can turn it on its head and see waste as a resource that should be used as such,” he added.

Stakeholders

Mr Read also said that the issue of consulting stakeholders was a major problem for planners and a balance needed to be struck between projects progressing on-time and allowing outside consultation.

He said: “We are always trying to address the issue of getting developments in place but also get a balance about inclusiveness with the public rights, public scrutiny and then there are still some things which are irreconcilable. We have to work through a process to resolve these problems.”

And, Mr Read also pointed to the issue of “big stakeholders”, naming the Environment Agency and English Heritage as examples, which he said had “their own priorities” when it came to planning.
Mr Read warned that these groups were “an essential part” of the planning process and claimed “there are tensions here in that some of these agencies seem more concerned about progressing their own concerns”.

Discussion

Also speaking at the ASPRG event, John Burns, deputy director of the government's Waste Infrastructure Development Programme (WIDP), discussed the part Defra plays in funding treatment capacity.

Mr Burns outlined that the government had, to date, issued £3.26 billion in PFI credits to 35 projects currently at various stages of procurement with about six million tonnes of residual waste treatment capacity.

Responding to a question on the need for the government to put greater emphasis on energy recovery, Mr Burns explained that there were overlaps with the renewable energy sector and that understanding of how the two areas could work together was still emerging.

He said: “Once we get into residual waste treatment [and recovery] we are not in the waste business anymore, we are in the energy business. So people in that area need to understand both industries and other issues, such as ROC regulations, and its changing slowly but there is a breadth of knowledge which is expanding.”

Mr Burns' comments came a week after the government showed signs of increasing support for energy from waste in its first Renewable Energy Strategy, including plans for a toolkit to help local authorities better communicate the benefits of the technology and a possible grant scheme for solid recovered fuel (see letsrecycle.com story).