News in Brief

UPM Shotton strikes deal for rejected material

UPM announced this week that it has moved a step closer to running a ‘zero waste’ operation at its Shotton paper mill, thanks to a long term deal that will see PHS Special Contracts, a division of PHS Wastetech, reprocess rejected material from the site.

Mixed waste materials from UPM Shotton’s pulping process will be cleaned and reprocessed to make recycled plastic products such as railway sleepers, furniture and high quality plastic board. Other materials sent to PHS which cannot be processed on their site, such as tin and aluminium, will be sent to other reprocessors.

Andrew Bronnert, head of energy and utilities at UPM Shotton, said: “We are delighted to have found a innovative solution through PHS for this most difficult of waste materials. We are now really heading towards zero waste from the site.”

Connaught waste services in Norwich transferred

Norwich city council has revealed that the contract for the city’s waste and recycling collections has been transferred from services company Connaught, which entered administration last week (see letsrecycle.com story) to its unaffected Connaught Environmental subsidiary.

The council said it had saved more than 200 jobs by moving the collection service, as well as street cleaning, ground and park maintenance operations, to the business, which it stressed was trading “normally on a profitable and standalone basis”, despite its parent company’s difficulties. The collection contract is sub-contracted to Verdant, under a seven-year, £20 million deal which was originally announced in April 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).

As Connaught entered difficulties, Norwich city council had stressed that it had contingency plans in place to ensure collection services continued to be delivered, and the council’s leader, Steve Morphew said that the latest announcement also meant it had “saved” over 200 jobs.

Neales wins Lancashire waste contracts

Lancashire county council has awarded Neales Waste Management two six year contracts to operate waste transfer stations in Preston and Middleton.

In response to this Neales, which is based in Blackburn but operates across the North West of England, has created a new division to manage the sites – Neales Direct Services. The company will handle around 110,000 tonnes-a-year of waste for the council. It has recruited 20 new members of staff and spent £500,000 on new equipment, such as six utility trucks and security systems, in order to fulfil the contract.

Howard Rushton, operations director at Neales, said: “We are delighted to have secured this contract. This is the first of its type and the first is always the most difficult to get.”

Jane Davidson speaks at Zero Waste Summit, Australia

Environment minister for Wales, Jane Davidson this week (September 13) gave the keynote address at the 2010 Zero Waste Summit in Canberra, Australia.

Ms Davidson addressed delegates via a video-link from Wales, which claims to be one of just three countries worldwide with a statutory duty towards sustainability and the first UK administration to commit to recycling 70% of its waste by 2025 and to be a zero waste nation by 2050. She discussed the challenge of making recycling normal behaviour for people, while avoiding making it too easy for people to produce or dispose of waste.

Prior to her speech the minister said: “As a small country, Wales is obviously a small player in terms of global resource management but we cannot stick our heads in the sand, nor should we leave it up to others to provide the solutions. We must all play our part, no matter how small.”

FareShare opens Liverpool depot

FareShare, a charity which redistributes surplus waste food from the food industry to the homeless and vulnerable, last week opened a depot in Liverpool which is being run by housing charity, Chapter 1.

FareShare, winner of ‘Britain’s Most Admired Charity’ 2010, claims to redistribute “quality” waste food from businesses including Nestlé UK, Sainsbury’s, Muller and Gerber Juice, to 600 local charities across the UK. The organisation said that, last year, this food contributed towards 6.7 million meals, helping 29,000 people each day.

Tony Lowe, chief executive of FareShare, commented: “Food poverty is a big issue in the UK today and we know that in Merseyside too, there are too many people not able to access healthy food on a regular basis. We are delighted to partner with Chapter 1 in order to provide vulnerable people in and around Liverpool with access to good quality food.

Fly-tipping prosecutions increase more than 20%

Defra has revealed that councils brought nearly 2,500 prosecutions for fly-tipping in 2009-10, an increase of more that 20% on the figure for the previous 12 months.

It also revealed that local authorities also issued 116,500 warning letters and 2,100 formal cautions to those suspected of illegally dumping waste. The majority (97%) of prosecutions were successful, although Defra estimated that local authorities were forced to spend up to £45.8 million last year to clear fly-tipped waste.

Environment minister, Lord Henley, said: “We’re encouraged by the efforts being made by local authorities to tackle fly-tipping but there is no room for complacency. A total of nearly 947,000 incidents is unacceptable by any standards and fly-tipping is clearly still a significant problem. We must all work together to stamp out this continuing blight on our neighbourhoods.”