Swindon and Wiltshire councils focus on waste minimisation in local plan

Wiltshire and Swindon councils have opened up their joint Waste Local Plan to a public inquiry, which is to be completed by early July 2003.

Measures included in the plan include a Waste Audit system, in which planning applications will have to provide an audit showing the expected level of waste from construction and steps that will be taken to reduce, reuse or recycle that waste.

Commenting on the Plan, which will cover the period up to 2011, senior planner at Swindon borough council Tim Perkins said: “We’re trying to take on board the government’s general waste strategy, but we're modifying the government waste hierarchy to prioritise waste elimination.”

Other areas that will be promoted by the councils once the plan is adopted in 2004 include home composting, reusable nappies, anti-junk mail schemes, furniture re-use schemes and community recycling and reuse schemes.

Sites
The plan identifies 30 sites within Swindon and Wiltshire for waste management purposes – mainly for recycling, though three sites have been allocated for energy from waste provision in Wiltshire. No sites have been identified for new landfills, despite a lack of capacity in the county.

“Swindon has enough landfill capacity to last for the period of the plan,” Mr Perkins said, “But Wiltshire has issues with the lack of landfill space, particularly in the south that means it is seriously looking at waste to energy.”

The plan is considering small energy from waste provision, as was recommended in the 2002 Wiltshire Municipal Waste Strategy. The strategy suggested “an initial capacity of 25,000 tonnes by 2005/06 and a projected total capacity of 50,000 tonnes by 2011.”

However, because of its available landfill space, Swindon is not likely to be allocated energy from waste before 2005-06, although the North Wiltshire town's draft strategy does suggest that “small scale energy from waste may have a role to play in the longer term.”

The plan is complicated by the fact that Swindon and Wiltshire councils have separate waste disposal contracts but both with the same company, Hills based in Marlborough.

•  Swindon borough council has expanded its fortnightly kerbside collection service for paper, to cover 28,000 households. The town’s recycling rate is 14%, less than half its 30% target for 2003-04. Geoff Davies, waste management team leader at Swindon council, said: “The creation of this round and other initiatives is the cornerstone of our efforts to achieve the target.”