Helping London to manage a greater proportion of its own waste has emerged as a key theme of the London Waste and Recycling Boards business plan for 2011-15.
The four-year plan, which was approved at a meeting in City Hall yesterday (June 14), aims to tackle the projected infrastructure capacity gap in the capital of 8.493 million tonnes by 2030.
The new business plan also sets out so-called innovative technologies that the steering group will look to pursue.
These include gas-to-grid technology, the use of waste derived fuels in Londons transport and work on hydrogen fuel cells.
The body, known as LWaRB, said it had selected these areas as they were close to commercialisation and would benefit from the input and, potentially, funding from the Board.
Commenting on the business plan, Mayor of London Boris Johnson, said: I am determined for London to unleash the huge economic and environmental benefits coming from our waste.
“LWARB’s funding is already helping Londoners to recycle more and investing in facilities to manage waste in a cleaner, greener way.
I welcome this new plan aiming to continue investment into new innovative waste infrastructure and with additional focus on working with boroughs to ensure greater financial efficiencies.
Work
The 2011-15 business plan is intended to build on the existing work undertaking by LWaRB. It has set out a total of 26.3 million to issue over the course of the next four years, with 6.3 million of this brought forward from the previous business plan.
The Board, which was established in September 2008, has thus far issued almost 52 million to waste, recycling and reuse projects across the capital, as well as continued funding for the Recycle for London campaign.
The plan also outlines a 4.6 million tool kit to help local authorities uncover ways of increasing financial savings through measure such as increased partnership working and collective procurement.
One element that the Board is keen to address is the need to support projects away from East London which has emerged as a focal point for funding since LWaRB was officially formed. The Board said it was proud of the work it had done in areas such as Dagenham but was keen to diversify its offering across the city.
Legacy
LWaRB has received a degree of criticism from local authority and waste industry experts over the speed with which it has delivered funding to projects, however, the Board defended its progress so far.
James Cleverly, chairman of the Board, told letsrecycle.com: It is part of the long term process, so last year we obviously had our business plan that promised a year of delivery and the year before that was the initialising period. We were putting together the call for projects and we had a very, very broad brief, which can be more of hindrance than a benefit.
Last year, it was about getting the ball moving and now we have a number of projects started and a number of projects happening that wouldnt have without our intervention.
Mr Cleverly also spoke of the Boards work to help change public perceptions of waste technologies, and said that the Biossence gasification plant in Dagenham which received an 8.9 million loan from LWaRB would be key to addressing concerns over waste-to-energy facilities.
Once that is up and running people are going to be able to look at that and say that is good and it will detoxify the debate [around energy-from-waste], he said.
And, Mr Cleverly said that the Board was in talks with the Green Investment Bank to discuss its operation and feed into the development of the financial institution.
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