A new Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy has been signed off by the county council and Norfolk's district councils, updating the original document released in the year 2000.
” Our awareness raising helped to stem the waste growth. “
– Oliver Furbur, Norfolk CC
According to Oliver Furbur, waste partnership and strategy officer at the county council, changes to the document include a more accurate assessment of waste growth in the county, the implications this will have on LATS and an estimation as to when the county may have to begin trading in landfill allowances.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday, Mr Furbur said: “If waste growth continues as it is and participation levels on recycling schemes remain as they are we are confident that we will not need to trade until after 2010.
“The difficulty will be the following years when targets begin to ramp up. We would hope to have our treatment facility in place by this point,” he added.
Norfolk is currently negotiating with council-owned Norfolk Environmental Waste Services regarding its bid to build a mechanical biological treatment plant under a PFI waste contract. The county had withdrawn preferred bidder status for the PFI deal from the rival bidder WRG, which wants to build an incinerator near Norwich (see letsrecycle.com story).
Reduction
One of the reasons the county believes that it will not need a treatment plant immediately is because it has begun to reduce the amount of waste its householders produce.
The Norfolk Partnership has set itself the target of collecting just 524kg per household per year by the end of this year. Mr Furbur explained: “Our current numbers suggest we are on course for just 508kg per head. Our awareness raising helped to stem the waste growth.”
He also said that the county's Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme targets could be achieved because the county's collection authorities – including South Norfolk, Breckland, King's Lynn and West Norfolk as well as Norwich, North Norfolk, Great Yarmouth and Broadland – are all improving their recycling rates.
All of the districts have introduced kerbside collections since 2002, which has seen the council's recycling rate pass the 30% mark for the first time.
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Barry Coleman, chairman of the Norfolk Waste Partnership, said: “The new kerbside recycling schemes introduced by the district councils have helped us to recycle and compost 34% of all our household waste in 2005/06.
“This will help the Norfolk Waste Partnership continue to increase our levels of recycling,” he added.
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