Its no surprise that the UK is lagging behind parts of Europe in terms of recycling rates. Some of Europes top performing recycling nations are sending less than 3% of their waste to landfill compared to the UKs 48%. In part this is due to some European nations approach to energy from waste (EfW), an area that the UK has remained somewhat reluctant to pursue.
Its important to remember that there are some areas where the UK has developed significantly, such as the recycling and recovery of end-of-life vehicles. ELV recycling and recovery rates are at 85% in the UK thanks to significant investment in the technology and infrastructure needed to extract valuable materials from vehicles.
This has been driven by the metals recycling sector which not only recovers valuable metals but has made significant in-roads in the recovery of plastics, glass and rubber too. Whilst the industry is confident it can recover at least some further valuable material from the 800,000 tonnes of the remaining shredder residue, there is great concern that the EUs target of 95% by 2015 will not be met by the UK unless energy recovery can make a contribution.The European ELV Directive makes specific reference to energy recovery as contributing up to 10% of the new target.
At this stage UK government has not provided the guidance needed on the criteria to be met by plants designed to recover energy from auto shredder residue (ASR). This is despite numerous discussions between BMRA, the Environment Agency and Defra over the last 18 months aimed at agreeing the basis on which ASR recovered as thermal energy should be considered a recovery process, as opposed to being regarded as disposal, for the purposes of meeting the ELV target.
Guidance
These 18 months have produced nothing; no negotiations, no proposals and no encouragement from government for the companies proposing to pump tens of millions of pounds of their own money into projects that will help the UK government meet its own obligations. The industry has not asked for subsidies or any support just guidance on how to proceed within the context of the Waste Framework Directive and the ELV Directive. This inertia is preventing metals recyclers from proceeding with the necessary, and very significant, investment ahead of targets increasing in 2015.
Many of our Northern European counterparts are already able to achieve recovery by using existing EfW capacity to meet these targets, but in the UK this is not an option. Not only is there is a scarcity of household waste EfW capacity in the UK but the ROCS-based financing structure for household waste EfW operation makes it uneconomical to use this type of industrial waste as a feed stock.
These barriers to the use of household EfW capacity are compounded because the calorific content of the material in ASR does not lend itself to co-incineration with municipal waste. It means dedicated plants for processing ASR are essential and the metals recycling industry is poised to take this next step.
Its an issue which is becoming ever more urgent as more time passes by and we edge closer to the 2015 target. Without clear guidance from Government, vital investment in new recycling capacity totalling hundreds of millions of pounds is on hold. It calls into question the Governments commitment to achieving landfill diversion and the zero waste agenda.
Register for free to comment