Northern Ireland failing to deliver recycling progress

A cross-sector government advisory group said yesterday that since the Strategy was introduced in the year 2000, the DoE has made satisfactory progress on only 16 of its 107 targets. Many of the Strategy's targets, including a reduction in landfilling of industrial and commercial wastes, are not even being measured, the group said.

The government was also urged to set up an independent environmental protection agency to carry out “accountable” monitoring, enforcement and regulation of waste management in Northern Ireland.

The damning criticisms came in a report from the Waste Management Advisory Board for Northern Ireland, a group of private sector, public sector and NGO members formed in 2002 to look into progress being made with the Waste Strategy.

The report accepted that the establishment of three sub-regional waste management groups of district councils was a step in the right direction, and said there had been progress made by some individual councils, but warned that the overall situation is “not encouraging”.

Deficit
As well as a lack of leadership from the DoE, the Board identified a lack of resources for meeting the Waste Strategy's targets, and said urgent priority needed to be given to a “huge deficit” in recycling and recovery infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

It said: “The board believes that insufficient resources have been made available from government for the implementation of the Waste Strategy. This matter needs to be addressed urgently.” And, it said: “The issue of the inadequate infrastructure for dealing with waste streams must be addressed.”

Some of the main recommendations of the report included:

• The establishment of a Cross-Departmental Delivery Group to ensure that all government departments engage with the Strategy and provide leadership.
  The establishment of a Cross Border Working Group with representation from government and all key stakeholders to look at an “all island approach” to waste management.
• The establishment of an independent Environmental Protection Agency for Northern Ireland, which would have the responsibility for delivery of robust and accountable monitoring, enforcement and regulation.
• Urgent priority to be given to the huge infrastructural deficit, which exists in Northern Ireland, in terms of waste treatment, recycling, recovery, disposal and processing capacity.
• Production of a single integrated Waste Management Plan for Northern Ireland inclusive of municipal, commercial, industrial, construction, demolition, hazardous and agricultural wastes.
• Reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery should be better promoted to the public, business and other sectors.
• To make available in Northern Ireland all Waste Resource Action Programme (WRAP) services available in the rest of the UK.

100% of the revenue generated by the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme in Northern Ireland should be used to support the development of sustainable waste management practices locally.

• Government should urgently establish a fund for the research and development of demonstration projects into alternative technologies that could provide solutions to the waste recycling, recovery and disposal problems of Northern Ireland.

Professor Deborah Boyd, chair of the Board, commented: “We urge the minister and the Department of Environment (Northern Ireland) to act upon the recommendations in implementation of the next phase of the Waste Management Strategy for Northern Ireland.

“There are many challenges and opportunities in waste management and it is the Board's view that Northern Ireland can lead the way.

“However, it is only through the involvement of all key stakeholders that the vision contained in the Strategy becomes a reality,” she added.

A full copy of the Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy Review report is available on the Environment and Heritage Service website.