News in Brief

Consultancy Environ has said it has now received its approval documents for its WEEE producer compliance scheme, called the B2BWEEE-Scheme.

The scheme will help electronics producers to comply with the new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations, which will require them to finance collection and recycling of old electrical appliances. The B2BWEEE-Scheme is promising a web-based system to help with producers' collection and recycling requirements.

Dr Aidan Turnbull, head of WEEE, RoHS and Eco-Design at Environ, said yesterday: “We delighted to have received our formal approval documents from the Environment Agency today.”

Eunomia Consulting, the consultancy led by Dr Dominic Hogg, received over 711,000 in fees for its work under Defra's Waste Implementation Programme.

A question from the Conservative shadow minister for communities, Caroline Spelman, prompted the Department to disclose that the Bristol-based consultancy has received nearly 1.3 million in fees under the WIP direct consultancy support scheme for local authorities since 2002/03.

Explaining the spending, Defra Parliamentary secretary Barry Gardiner MP said: “The consultancy concerned environmental regulation policy, and various aspects of waste management strategy including but not limited to waste disposal; waste and recycling; municipal waste; waste procurement; waste minimisation; regulatory impact assessments; planning and pollution central regimes; waste technologies; and waste practice guidance.”

Aerial view of Lancing household Waste Recycling Centre, one of Viridor's civic amenity sites in West Sussex

Twelve household waste recycling sites run by Viridor Waste Management in West Sussex have won “widespread” customer praise.

According to an independent poll carried out in July 2006, 94% of customers said they were satisfied with the service, which Viridor provides under a 25-year waste and recycling contract with West Sussex county and district councils. A further 89% of people said that the sites were “user friendly.”

Frank Wilkinson, West Sussex county council member for strategic planning, said: “Being a backbone of 'Reclaim West Sussex' the network is playing a key role in our aim to meet countywide recycling targets. This means it is vital they have strong customer support. These findings show this is certainly the case and staff at all of the sites are to be congratulated for this excellent endorsement of their commitment.”

A Paddington business consortium has launched a free paper recycling service for local businesses in partnership with office recycling firm Paper Round.

The Paddington Business Improvement District, which is funded by local businesses, has launched the scheme as part of a project to raise environmental awareness in Paddington. The three month pilot will see recycling bags delivered to companies and if successful, will continue throughout 2007 and be broadened to include cardboard, glass and plastic.

Gary Goldston, chairman of Paddington BID, said: “While residential recycling schemes are now common practice across the UK, regular free collections for businesses are still too few and far between. This new scheme is therefore good news for Paddington companies, and particularly smaller businesses that are less likely to be able to afford their own individual recycling arrangements.”