“If we can confine the word waste to the bin of history where it belongs then we will have made progress”
Hilary Benn
In a report published on Monday (February 1), the group called for the UK's waste strategy to be aligned with the government's plans to move to a low carbon economy, which were detailed in the Low Carbon Transition Plan (see letsrecycle.com story).
The report, entitled 'Beyond Carbon: Towards a Resource Efficient Future', claimed that making this move “effectively” would: “Streamline design, production and distribution processes, lower costs to the UK economy, reduce dependency on imported resources and lower overall GHG emissions.”
This sentiment was echoed by Dr Gev Eduljee of SITA, who helped to write the report and told the launch event that now was the “ideal opportunity” to turn the Waste Strategy 2007 into a 'Resource Management Strategy for 2010/11', which could then be integrated into the Low Carbon Transition Plan.
Lifecycle approach
The report claimed that, by moving to a resource efficient industrial strategy, the UK could create an “integrated policy framework” which tied resource use, production, consumption and waste management into a “virtuous circle” by using a lifecycle approach. This would include considering “embedded carbon” in material flows, it said.
Claiming this would require action on areas including promoting the use of secondary materials, re-use, eliminating the unnecessary use of primary resources, sustainable design and waste prevention, it detailed metals as an example of moving to a resource efficient approach.
In particular, it said that a resource efficient approach for metals would involve the reuse of as much material as possible, reducing the amount of scrap metal that is exported and new material that is imported, adopting leaner production processes and increasing recycling rates.
It also called for policy action, such as a ban on the landfilling of metals or products with more than 20% metals content by 2011, and work to identify “EU centres” for metal recycling installations.
And, it added: “The Government, with advice from the Knowledge Transfer Networks, WRAP and Technology Strategy Board, should formulate an industrial strategy for material, product and sectoral opportunities for targeting 100% recovery (such as mobile phones, aerosols, catalysts and automotive electronics) and remanufacture based on particular scrap streams.”
Benn
Speaking at the launch, environment secretary Hilary Benn endorsed the Aldersgate Group's call for there to be more consideration for the whole lifecycle of products.
“We need to create a loop where things are treated as assests and lifecycles are as near to infinite as we can make them,” he said.
Calling for a focus on resources rather than waste, Mr Benn said: “If we can confine the word waste to the bin of history where it belongs then we will have made progress.”
And, he repeated the government's commitment to launch a consultation on material-specific landfill bans, “within the next month and a half or so”, reiterating the point he made exclusively to letsrecycle.com last week (see letsrecycle.com story) that any bans “might not be the same date for every product”.
Mr Benn was speaking as Defra launched its own pamphlet, 'Recovery, Growth and the Environment', which aims to offer advice to businesses on resource efficiency.
Marking the launch of the document, he said that, as well as making good business sense in the short term, businesses that adopted resource efficient measures such as reducing waste in the longer term would “ensure their sustainability and future success in a world where our natural resources are becoming scarcer, and more expensive.”
The Aldersgate Group has 36 members including waste management company Biffa, former Biffa director and member of the London Waste and Recycling Board Peter Jones, consultancy Enviros, the Renewable Energy Association and the Environment Agency.
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