Government plans outlined in the Waste Review to consult on restricting waste wood from landfill in England are common sense and will provide a huge boost for the wood recycling industry.
That is the message from wood recyclers and the panel board industry following the publication of the review on Tuesday (June 14) (see letsrecycle.com story).
According to WRAP, around 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood arises in the UK each year but only half of this is currently recycled, with the remainder sent to landfill.
In order to address this, the Waste Review states that: In 2012 we will consult on introducing a restriction on the landfilling of wood waste, with the aim of diverting the still substantial tonnage that ends up in landfill to better uses up the waste hierarchy and delivering clear environmental benefits.
Clem Spencer, chairman of the Wood Recyclers Association (WRA) which represents 78 companies working in the wood recycling sector told letsrecycle.com that the measure was good news forWRA members.
We would naturally welcome a ban because it would divert more waste wood away from landfill, he said. At our latest meeting in Glasgow we discussed landfillrestrctions for woodin Germany and how it was only a matter of time before they were introduced here.
WRA deputy secretary Rick Wilcox said that the move, which had been mooted by the previous government, was common sense.
He said: This is a win-win for wood recyclers and the public generally. It will mean that the recycling of postconsumer wood will be boosted significantly as we know there is a huge amount of wood waste currently going to landfill. It could also help attract investment in wood recycling.
Mr Wilcox added that the wood recycling sector did not currently operate at full capacity and so therefore should be able to absorb any large increase in tonnage which occurred as a result of any restriction without much difficulty.
Panel board
Praise for the proposed consultation also came from the panel board factories, which have beenlobbying for wood to be banned from landfill as part of their Make Wood Work campaign.
The campaign was launched by sector trade body the Wood Panel Industries Federation (WPIF) in June 2010 to highlight the fact that the development of large-scale biomass plants was putting wood recycling industries such as panel board factories at risk by pushing up the price of waste and virgin wood (see letsrecycle.com story).
Alastair Kerr, director general of the WPIF, told letsrecycle.com: We welcome this proposal because there is rising demand for wood from the energy sector and at present there is not enough wood available to support all the potential demand. The more we can broaden the basket the more it will reduce pressure for material, especially virgin resources… it seems to be common sense.
However, Mr Kerr said that it was important not to get too excited as it was just a consultation at this stage and this was just a small step towards its goal of ensuring that higher quality material was recycled rather than used to generate energy.
And, he said that more biomass boilers would need to be compliant with wasteemissions legislation if they were going to be burning more waste, rather than virgin, material.
He said: We will need to see the details of the consultation regarding details such as timeframe and practicalities.
Another note of caution came from Mr Wilcox, who pointed out that, whilerestricting wood from landfill was good news for recyclers, it might present some challenges with regards to collection.
He said: The difficult part will be educating industry and the population at last to segregate material.
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