Communities secretary Eric Pickles announcement last month of 250 million to encourage councils to collect waste weekly has certainly grabbed the headlines, with strong views on both sides over whether it is a good or bad move for waste management and recycling.
But perhaps less well-reported but just as significant was the praise handed out by Mr Pickles to mechanical biological treatment (MBT), and the role he envisages that technology playing in allowing councils to collect residual waste weekly but to still achieve high recycling rates.
By separating valuable dry recyclables and organic material from residual, or black bag, waste, MBT makes it easier and more cost-effective for councils and businesses alike to attain high recycling rates and to divert material from landfill, therefore avoiding the ever-increasing cost of waste disposal.
Perhaps most importantly, it keeps waste management simple for the householders and businesses generating waste which, given the furore over-complicated collection systems, is no bad thing.
It also produces solid recovered fuel (SRF), which can be used as an environmentally-sound and economic alternative to fossil fuels for product generation, and as such also has a key role to play in helping energy-from-waste technologies establish themselves as part of the UKs burgeoning renewable energy offering.
MBT isnt a new idea indeed, Shanks opened its first UK plant to use the technology in East London almost five years ago but Mr Pickles comments are the latest in a growing line of events adding momentum to the case in favour of the technology.
Scotland
In Scotland, the countrys ambitious Zero Waste goals also make MBT an increasingly attractive option. Plans to limit the amount of biodegradable waste to landfill and require the pre-sorting of recyclables provide a legislative driver that will no doubt see more local authorities and businesses North of the Border follow the example of Dumfries and Galloway council.
In 2004, Dumfries and Galloway signed a long-term waste management contract with Shanks that centred on the development of a 65,000 tonne-a-year capacity MBT facility at Lochar Moss in Dumfries. Opened in 2007, the plant has helped the council to increase its recycling rate from just 10% to almost 40%.
More recently, in April of this year, a partnership between Shanks and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), known as 3SE, was named as preferred bidder for the long-term treatment, using MBT, of residual waste produced by three Yorkshire councils.
Under the deal, Shanks will develop a large-scale MBT facility in Rotherham, turning Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherhams waste into RDF which will then be used to generate much-needed renewable energy at a power station which SSE plans to build at Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire.
Of course, while the benefits of MBT are obvious, some aspects of the sudden growth of the technology have raised concern. In particular, the export of the RDF produced by MBT processes has been questioned by some who believe the UKs energy security rests upon the material remaining on these shores.
Shanks was the first UK company to secure a licence to export SRF in 2010, in response to an emerging need for this fuel on the continent and a lack of capacity for it in the UK. Hopefully, planned improvements in the planning process and a future upturn in the economy will help to drive the markets and infrastructure needed to allow this energy-rich material to be treated nearer to source.
But, in the meantime, it is important not to overlook the more immediate benefits of MBT in diverting waste from landfill and to make the most of a technology which has a major role to play in the future UK waste management landscape.
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