His comments were made in an exclusive interview with letsrecycle.com the day after Northern Ireland's Executive decided that it would not be able to deliver the reform programme, which would also involve a reduction in the number of Northern Irish councils from 26 to 11, to the timetable planned.
There are issues to deal with but my thought process is that we can sweat our assets through a single authority maximising recycling
Edwin Poots, Northern Irish minister of the environment
Local authorities have also raised their concerns over the package of reform, and in particular the amount they will have to pay towards its introduction.
But, in terms of the single waste authority proposals (see letsrecycle.com story), Mr Poots emphasised the benefits that it could have in terms of contract procurement and marketing recyclables.
“There are issues to deal with but my thought process is that we can sweat our assets through a single authority maximising recycling,” he said, explaining that the opposition was a result of those who were “totally opposed” to incineration mistakenly believing the proposals were a means to develop incinerators in Northern Ireland.
“I think people shouldn't get too burdened down under the misperception this is about getting incinerators built,” he said, explaining that, while incineration “may be” the solution to Northern Ireland's waste treatment needs, there were “a lot of other exciting technologies coming forward”, such as gasification, anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis.
The Northern Irish department of the environment has said it is currently preparing an economic appraisal which aims to identify the “most efficient” way to deliver waste management in Northern Ireland, and Mr Poots has said he will await the results of this exercise before making a final decision on the next move for the single waste authority proposals.
Infrastructure
If the single waste authority is created it would bring together the three groups of councils currently procuring multi-million pound waste infrastructure deals, which are arc21, SWaMP 2008 and the North West Region Waste Management Group.
Mr Poots revealed that, with the Northern Irish government committing £200 million towards the projects, he could intervene in those procurement processes if he believed any of the waste management groups if they were signing up to a “bad deal” for the taxpayer.
“We would be supporting the groups with around £200 million of costs so there would be some influence in that respect,” he explained, adding that: “The issue about waste is it's absolutely essential we develop local solutions. I just want to ensure that whilst developing local solutions we maximise our capacity for the procurement.”
I won't wear any of Northern Ireland signing up to a bad deal which leaves the taxpayer paying for many years to come
Edwin Poots, Northern Irish minister of the environment
While noting that it would be “foolhardy” to halt the procurement processes, Mr Poots said that action could be taken if tenders came at a “prohibitive” cost, leaving the public to “line the pockets” of the contractor.
“I won't wear any of Northern Ireland signing up to a bad deal which leaves the taxpayer paying for many years to come,” he said.
Collections
In terms of waste and recycling collections, Mr Poots hailed Northern Ireland's success in increasing its recycling rate over the past 10 years and claimed the country was “well on the way” to reaching its 2020 recycling goals.
But, he said that more needed to be done by councils which were lagging behind with recycling rates in the “mid-20s” and claimed there were “more relatively easy wins” to increase the overall rate further.
As well as highlighting the impact that Northern Ireland's recently-announced fund offering £3.1 million to councils for waste services (see letsrecycle.com story ) could have, Mr Poots said a particular priority was to look at whether source-segregated or commingled recycling collections were the best option.
“I want to test that out a little further – that you get more waste recycled from mixed systems,” he said. “To look at areas where it's happening and see how much the public is buying into it, is it a middle class phenomenon?”
Approach
Outlining his overall approach to dealing with waste management in Northern Ireland, Mr Poots said: “It's a very exciting period, there's a lot of developments coming through. We also need to look at how we can extend this further, look at how we can extend the figures beyond existing targets, also looking in terms of energy recovery.
“It's about having the right technologies and the right levels of solutions,” he added.
Within this, he said he aimed to consider whether the 2020 recycling targets should just be aimed for or exceeded. “What we're thinking about is ‘are the targets challenging enough? Should we be looking at exceeding the targets? Is there sufficient financial incentive to exceed the targets?'
Register for free to comment