WRAP awards “largest ever” Northern Irish grant
Armagh-based Natural World Products has been issued the money, which represents WRAP's “largest ever” grant for a Northern Irish firm, in a bid to help it develop a £6 million recycling facility on the outskirts of West Belfast. The plant is intended to recycled 60,000 tonnes of organic material collected from across Northern Ireland a year. The grant comes as part of WRAP's plan to invest in more facilities capable of treating biodegradable waste across the UK by March 2011 in a bid to raise the UK reprocessing capacity to 400,000 tonnes-a-year.
Dr Ian Garner, manger for WRAP Northern Ireland, said: “We have made a significant investment in the capital costs of Natural World Products innovative recycling facility which will take Northern Ireland's recycling capacity to a higher level.”
Planning permission for Shanks Cumbria MBT
The Milton Keynes-based firm was given the go-ahead by the county council's development control and regulation committee to develop the 75,000 tonnes-a-year capacity facility at Hespin Wood. The plant is set to be constructed by Penrith-based company Hanson Contracting, with work beginning in August 2009. Shanks is hopeful of it being operational by early 2012. Development of the Hespin Wood plant is one of two MBTs being built as part of Shanks 25-year, £700 million waste management contract with Cumbria county council. Closure of the contract had been delayed by the economic downturn but the council is hopeful for final completion of contract negotiations “imminently” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Stephen Ray, operations director for Shanks PFI, said: “The granting of planning permission is really good news for Cumbria. Now we really can begin to lay the foundations of a more sustainable future for dealing with Cumbria's waste.”
Views sought on revised Duty of Care code of practice
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a consultation on the waste Duty of Care code of practice in a bid to increase levels of compliance.
The consultation, launched on April 30, comes in the wake of responses to a Defra consultation in June 2008 on the Controls on the Handling, Transfer and Transport of Waste, which proposed updating and reissuing the waste Duty of Care to tailor it to the specific role of the waste holder, so wherever he or she is in the waste management chain, clear, practical guidance is available which enables them to discharge their responsibilities under the law. The consultation, which is set to run for 12 weeks, is intended to help increase compliance with the duty, reduce inadvertent breaches and increase the quality of information passed between holders.
Defra claim that the consultation is centred on the code of practice and the extent to which it offers clear, fit for purpose and practical guidance to waste holders, and not the Duty of Care itself, which it intends to make no substantive alterations to. For more details visit the Defra website.
WRAP launches two retail research projects
The government-funded research body is inviting participants from the UK retail sector to take part in a study to investigate the overall waste generated by its supply chain in a bid to allow companies to benchmark themselves against aggregated data. The project – which is aimed at grocery and home improvement retailers and their suppliers – will assess packaging, product and food waste generated by manufactures through distribution to back of store. Once the research is complete, WRAP intends to develop best practice guidance and case studies and convert the data into equivalent cost, water, energy and carbon savings.
In the second of the two studies undertaken by WRAP, the organisation is set to work with Envirowise to calculate the amount of fresh produce and packaging waste in the UK retail sector supply chain. WRAP hopes to publish its findings on the types and quantities of produce and packaging waste produced by the sector in the autumn.
SITA UK drops appeal plans for Seghill extension
Waste management and recycling company SITA UK has decided not to pursue its current plans for an eastern extension to the Seghill landfill in Northumberland due to the cost of appealing.
The French-owned company had submitted a planning application to Northumberland county council in January with a view to extending the operational life of the site to 2012, three years beyond its existing planned cessation date of December 31 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story). However, after the application was turned down, SITA is now looking at a range of other options,including the potential to increase the disposal capacity within its current operations and a smaller scheme at the Seghill landfill site.
John Grainger, SITA UK general manager in the North East, said: “We have decided against pursuing the case for extending the Seghill landfill site as the cost of the appeal process would have been significant in the current economic climate, and there would be no certainty of a positive outcome.”
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