In the UK there is set to be 141 campaigns during the week, with the majority taking place in East Anglia where the Government Office for the East of England is taking a lead on the initiative. During the 2008 pilot of the campaign, the only UK participant was the North London Waste Authority (see letsrecycle.com story).
The week follows increasing emphasis placed on prevention in the waste hierarchy under the revised Waste Framework Directive, which sets the ground rules for waste across Europe and is due to be implemented into UK law by December 12, 2010. Importantly, the directive requires EU Member States to design and produce waste prevention programmes by December 12 2013 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The campaign is set to run for three years and has the support of the European Commission's Life+ Programme, the French Environment and Energy Management Association as well as Europe-wide recycling organisation ACR+ and the Brussels Institute of Environmental Management (IGBE) – which is the administrative body for waste management in the Belgian capital.
UK
In the UK, initiatives will include ‘recycling buses' to spread the message of recycling and reduction in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Peterborough as well as work between local authorities and supermarkets in Hertfordshire and Luton to help raise awareness about sustainable consumption among shoppers. There will also be school campaigns, road shows and promotion of WRAP's Love Food, Hate Waste initiative.
Explaining why the majority of the 79 English efforts were in East Anglia, a spokesman for ACR+ told letsrecycle.com: “There was a high degree of interest shown by both the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority and Recycle for London but unfortunately both of these authorities were unable to take on board the organisation of the Week this year.
“However both of these groups have expressed huge interest in participating in next year's event and we are confident we will be able to incorporate these areas into the EWWR 2010 fold.”
Twenty-nine campaigns are set to be coordinated by Waste Awareness Wales, which will include work by local authorities, third sector group Cylch, business support organisation Envirowise and the Keep Wales Tidy campaign.
The initiative in Wales focuses on five waste issues: junk mail, reusing items, food waste, Smart Shopping – which targets sustainability in food purchasing – and reusable nappies.
In Scotland, Waste Awareness Scotland is helping to coordinate 32 initiatives throughout the country and Belfast city council intends to relaunch its waste minimsation campaign through a series of road shows and television and radio adverts.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Jean-Pierre Hannequart, president of ACR+ and managing director of IGBE, said: “The main problem in the UK is the confusion over waste prevention and waste minimisation – which is about diversion and reduction of waste to landfill. This campaign is completely focused on catching the affects of consumption in the first place.”
Figures
The announcement of the EWWR in Brussels was coupled with an analysis of prevailing trends in European waste growth from the European Joint Research Centre.
The analysis included a projection that municipal waste generated annually by the Member States is set to increase, on average, by 33% between 2007 and 2030 among the 15 oldest EU Member States. However, the increase is projected to be as much as 66% among newer Member States.
Commenting on the figures, Karolina Fras, European Commission policy officer, said: “We hope that the [newer] countries will not produce as much waste as the so-called ‘older' countries. We hope that they will learn from the lessons that those other countries can offer to them.”
Mrs Fras also explained that one issue would be decoupling waste growth from economic growth as the new EU Member States become more affluent over time.
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