Transformational year for SITA UK

While he is pleased about the companys progress, he calls on the government to offer clarification on issues such as the future cost of landfill tax. By providing this, he said, the government will provide certainty for the industry which will allow it to plan for the future and invest.

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mr Palmer-Jones said 2013 has been a year of transformation for the waste management firm, with progress on a number of energy-from-waste projects, materials recycling facilities (MRFs) and its end-of-life plastics to diesel facility.

Commenting on the change, he said: Our business has transformed beyond all recognition now from the simplicity of landfilling to this quite complex business of extracting value and understanding the value that is within our customers; materials and waste…to become a processing business, a real industrial business and at the end we have to trade out materials across the world. So really that is a big challenge for us and we are seeing lots of new people coming to SITA UK from lots of disciplines so I am seeing an even better year in 2014.

In 2014, Mr Palmer-Jones said SITA would be doing more of the same. Weve got 2 million tonnes [of capacity] either in construction of being commissioned next year. That is a great advert for SITAs ability to really deliver robust solutions to the market and to its customers.

Cornwall

One infrastructure project which has made progress in 2013 was the energy-from-waste incinerator being built in St Dennis, Cornwall. The facility is being developed under a 30-year PFI contract between SITA UK and Cornwall council, which was signed in 2006 (see letsrecycle.com story).

The council has been fighting a long running legal battle with some residents over its development. However, the final hurdle was overcome in July 2012 as a legal challenge over the 100 million, 240,000 tonne-a-year capacity plant was refused paving the way for construction to begin (see letsrecycle.com story).

Commenting on the facility and hurdles it has had to overcome, Mr Palmer-Jones said: There has been one element of the contract which has taken longer and that is the agreement of the planning for the energy-from-waste element. However we can be pleased that the UK is a democracy. This is a natural democratic process. Is it wrong that people challenge planning for facilities in their area? No is the answer to that.

He added: It has been robustly challenged through to the supreme court level to the ultimate instance of justice in the UK. It has been ratified by them and it is now our job to get on and build that solution for an area where landfill is rapidly running out.

C&I waste

One area which has faced increasing pressure over the last few years is the C&I waste market. Mr Palmer-Jones agreed that it had been a tough market, especially as it is sensitive to consumption which has struggled since the recession hit at the end of 2008.

However, he said that SITA had no plans to exit the market and instead sees opportunities: I think it has been a challenging market. Have we gone back to basics? Yes. Is it a market that we want to stay with? Yes. It is part of my ability to be able to get materials for the infrastructure that we are building.

It is in the C&I market that Mr Palmer-Jones believes there are a number of ways to improve resource efficiency and push towards a circular economy. He said: I think one of the challenges for the waste business, or resource or material management business, is that we will have to have a very different relationship with our C&I customers. We will need to have a close working relationship with them very early on in the creation of their products in order that we can assist them to use less resources in the process of manufacturing and then what they do manufacture can become very easy for us to reuse or recycle in some manner.

Government support

Looking to the future, Mr Palmer-Jones expressed his disappointment at the lack of clarity offered by government on the landfill tax escalator past 2014/15 as well as the move by Defra to pull back on its waste activities (see letsrecycle.com story).

He said: I have a bit of a wish list for Defra. It is a shame that want to pull back. Our industry has got so many positives, in its ability to not only extract value from waste, but also in that infrastructure and billions of pounds worth of investment that go towards that and the number of job creations. It seems strange to me that they would want to pull back at this very critical phase.

They should play a role in facilitation. What we are asking for in our industry really isnt much. Its not money we are after it is a little bit of assistance on a few key areas. One of them is landfill tax. The clarity that we have through landfill tax escalators is one of the key for the positive nature of our change in our industry.