Essex to renew waste strategy
The Essex Waste Partnership is currently working to renew its joint municipal waste strategy, following claims from Essex county council that a new waste strategy is “urgently needed”.
The county council noted that its waste disposal costs are exceeding £155 a tonne, with the majority of residual waste sent to landfill.
The council said it believes that landfilling as well as waste production should be reduced as much as possible. It added that a determined, renewed, approach to increase recycling from the current 53% in Essex to 70% by 2030 as a move towards an eventual zero-waste system, is to be aimed at.
The council then called upon the cabinet to adopt a waste plan conforming to the above by next summer.
The Essex Waste Partnership states that it is currently working on a renewed joint municipal waste strategy, with the current 25-year plan developed in 2007. The partnership comprises of twelve waste collection authorities, including Essex county council, Colchester borough council, Basildon borough council and others.
WISH announces new tools
The Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) announced that a second WISH Worker Engagement and Leadership in Health and Safety conference took place last week.
Demonstrated were the benefits of using both the ‘Health and Safety Leadership’ and ‘Worker Engagement’ tools. These aim to improve worker engagement in health and safety along with finding ways to increase the effectiveness of leadership within workplaces in the sector.
Industry figures discussed the issue, with Sue Thompson from Health and Safety Executive (HSE) saying that “doing the bare minimum is not enough” and that we have to “consider emerging technologies and involving workers”.
Lee Hillam from South Cambridgeshire district council produced an example of using both tools in a relatively small organisation, while FCC Environment’s Paul Jarvey spoke about using the tools on a larger scale within the company’s recycling division, reviewing the responses at national and local levels.
Suez UK amongst best big UK companies to work for
Suez has announced that it has been recognised in Best Companies’ list of top big UK employers for employee engagement for the third time.
The waste management company said it was ranked 23rd for big UK companies in the annual league tables compiled by Best Companies, which describes itself as an employee engagement specialist.
Best Companies highlighted Suez’s “open and honest relationships that employees have with their line managers at and that employees feel that they make a valuable contribution to the overall success of the organisation”.
John Scanlon, chief executive officer for SUEZ UK, said: “We’ve always been clear that our people are our greatest asset and critical to our ability to deliver reliable, high-quality services to our customers, and I’m immensely proud to have retained our place amongst the 25 Best Big Companies to work for in the UK.”
Hertfordshire to scrap plans to reopen HWRC
Hertfordshire council is to scrap plans to reopen a household waste and recycling centre (HWRC) which was closed during the pandemic.
The council had planned to reopen the Buntingdon centre at a cost of £1.85 million. However, the report explained that pre-pandemic data showed that the site received just 993 tonnes per annum, which equates to c. 1.3% of the total HWRC network’s waste volume.
“There is currently no available budget provision for these costs,” the report reads.
It added that there is little proof that its closure will increase fly-tipping in the area, saying that incidents haven’t risen while it’s been closed.
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