Northern Irish councils urged not to lock up waste

Northern Irelands three waste management groups must not lock themselves into long-term residual waste treatment contracts at the expense of local operators.

That was one of the main messages at an open day for members of the countrys Department of Environment, paper recyclers and reprocessors, council representatives and consultants organised by paper recycling firm Highlander Recycling in Belfast last week (April 7).

Held at the prestigious Belfast Harbour Offices, delegates raised concerns about the on-going tendering of three large-scale waste contracts being let by three different local authority bodies in the province.

Arc21, the North West Residual Waste Management Group and SWaMP2008 are all currently at the tail-end of their contract procurement processes, having all narrowed their shortlist of bidders to two contenders. All three of these contracts are worth hundreds of millions of pounds and are set to run for around 25 years.

Speaking in Belfast, Michael Cunningham, director at Omagh-based recycling firm Recyco, said that the three groups were effectively locking up the waste in long-term deals. This move was seen by some as having a potentially detrimental effect on smaller firms in the province.

Mr Cunningham said: I can understand exactly where they are coming from. Back in 2003, when they started out the process, the waste industry was evolving very quickly.

My view is that before you commit [to a 25-year deal] have a look at what has become available in the past few years. Look at what we and other companies can provide and if we cant provide something thats fine but what I would say is you need to have a look.

He called for the waste management groups to assess alternative options before tying large quantities of waste in Northern Ireland into three long term deals. It is not the time to be signing a 25-year deal when we look at the advances over the past eight to 10 years, he said.

Delegates pointed to investment made by local operators in Northern Ireland over the past decade, such as Recycos materials recycling facility in County Tyrone and Wright Recyclings sorting facility in County Down (see letsrecycle.com story).

Funding

Also at the event, environment minister Edwin Poots announced a huge cash injection to the Department for Environments Rethink Waste Fund. The Fund, which is used to distribute funding to local authority initiatives, will have a further 9.3 million to distribute over the next four years.

Mr Poots, who informed delegates that his Assembly term as environment minister is coming to an end, praised the initiatives that had already been successful in accruing financial support from the Rethink Waste Fund

We have supported a wide range of projects, including collection systems, he said. Forty-one projects have been offered funding across the three waste management regions.

The Fund was originally launched in June 2010 with 3.1 million to distribute and has since been added to by the Department of Environment to fund further projects (see letsrecycle.com story).

In addition to announcing the funding, Mr Poots discussed his wish for a more aspirational recycling target to be adopted by the province. At present, Northern Ireland has a 50% recycling and composting target for 2020 but Mr Poots reiterated calls for a 60% goal to be introduced (see letsrecycle.com story).

All of the parties we have aided work in partnership and they will become increasingly more important if we are to meet the 50% target. But I dont think that is a target we should be aiming for, it is a target we should exceed and I am currently looking for a target closer to 60%, he said.