News in Brief

Localism Bill receives Royal Assent

The Act includes provisions to strip councils of their ability to fine residents for throwing away excessive amounts of refuse as well as charging extra tariffs for taking away household waste. The Act also abolishes the Infrastructure Planning Commission, handing their powers over infrastructure projects to Ministers. A new general power of competence will give councils the power to do anything they wish to find efficiencies so long as they do not break any other laws, alongside a community right to bid and right to challenge so locals can have the opportunity to run valued local assets and have more of a say in how their local services are run.

Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities Eric Pickles, said: For too long, local people were held back and ignored because Whitehall thought it knew best. That is changing for good.

Clegg visits textile recycling scheme in Cardiff

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg professed his view that sustainability is the answer to rising youth unemployment during a visit to a textile recycling scheme in Cardiff last Friday (November 18).

While at PreFab Clothing, a textile recycling and reuse initative operated by Cardiff YMCA Housing Association, Mr Clegg remarked how small scale initiatives such as this provided a big clue as to whatthe country needed tobe doing to get young people back into work.

The project is run by YMCA HA staff, volunteers and work experience placements arranged by the training arm of Cylch, the Welsh community recycling network, which is known as Cylch Quality Learning (CQL). Over the past year CQL has been working closely with the Welsh Council for Voluntary Action to provide work experience placements for unemployed 18-25 year olds in Wales.

Cylch members, such as PreFab, are responsible for diverting around 1000 tonnes of unwanted textiles from landfill each year, whilst supporting good causes, providing green jobs and benefitting local people.

Alex Laurie, CQL contracts manager, said: Our programme supports Cylchs aspiration of helping people to make a positive difference to their lives and their communities through work, skills and training. As part of the wider social enterprise sector, we are delighted to see community reuse and recycling getting the recognition it deserves.

Eco park film unveiled

Developers of a 500 million Resource Recovery Park located in Manchester have released a fly-through film to demonstrate how the site will look once built.

The film details the concept behind the Ince Park development, located on the south bank of the Manchester Ship Canal, and how the canal, rail and road links will all service the site. The facility features a biomass Energy from Waste plant, which will generate around 115MW of electricity and an Environmental Technologies Complex to house specialist resource recovery companies.

Myles Kitcher, director of Peel Environmental, said: The concept behind the Eco Park can be quite difficult for people to grasp, so the fly-through shows how the park could look in a few years time, and how it will take advantage of its excellent transport links. When fully occupied the Park will create over 1,000 new jobs, so its a very exciting project and the fly-through brings the vision to life.

The fly-through film can be viewed here.

NEC gets tough on waste

The National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham has adopted a number of recycling schemes as part of its drive to become one of the UKs greenest venues.

Following on from the installation of a 330,000 waste pre-treatment centre in 2009 that aims to recycle 50% of the venues waste by 2013, the centre has teamed up with Overton Recycling in Stourbridge to recycle its waste fridges and other electrical equipment. One of the NECs policies is that waste products should travel no more than 30 miles from site for processing; so Overton was chosen to help the venue meet its targets. Fridges will be de-gassed there and shredded with the resulting different waste streams including copper, aluminium and plastic – recycled.

Steve Cartmell, waste manager at the NEC, said: Our ambitious targets mean that every bit of waste produced here at the NEC is considered. So when sixteen industrial size fridges were replaced as part of a refurbishment programme, we looked for ways to ensure their disposal was in line with our strict environmental views.

Funding boost for recycling on the go

Up to 150,000 in funding has been announced to support recycling in public places in Scotland.

The grant, provided by Zero Waste Scotland, will fund new recycling infrastructure in town centres, public parks, shopping centres and sports and leisure facilities. Funding is not available for events or recycling at work.

Iain Gulland, director of Zero Waste Scotland, said: Through the Zero Waste Plan, we are committed to making it easier for people to recycle wherever they are, so we truly become a zero waste society. To do this we need to build on the revolution in recycling at home over the past decade and make recycling the norm in all our public spaces too. This funding is a vital first step on that journey and we hope to continue investment in this area over the coming years.