Waste expert calls for “vision” of sustainable living

Dr Philip Rushbrook, the former World Health Organisation head of waste management, was speaking at his inaugural lecture as Visiting Professor in International Sustainable Wastes Management at University College Northampton last night.

Dr Rushbrook, who has worked to improve waste management in developing countries all over the world, said that at the moment the environmental movement is “cherry picking” with certain aspects of a modern lifestyle. Instead, people needed to be provided with a “full vision of how wholly sustainable living should be”.

UCN's new visiting professor also works as deputy director of the Regulatory Impact Unit at the Cabinet Office. As well as working for the WHO, Dr Rushbrook has worked for the World Bank and has worked to improve the management of waste in former war zones including Bosnia.

Speaking about his new role at UCN, Dr Rushbrook said he was hoping to encourage people to tackle the major debates in waste “in a different way”. He said that the UK should not be too “proud” to learn about sustainable lifestyles from “less developed societies”.

Limit
In the UK, he said that the future would most likely see recycling targets set ever higher, because that was the “politically easy” thing to do. But he suggested that environmentally, it might be better to set a limit for recycling. Above a certain recycling rate, he suggested pushing for more recycling could start to cause more harm to the environment than good.

“Once we get to a certain point, it could require more transport, producing more pollution, to get that last bit of material for recycling, which may cause more environmental damage than opting for a maximum level,” he explained.

Dr Rushbrook told letsrecycle.com that however high recycling rates can reach, there would always be a need for landfill. But, he warned that with councils focussed on diverting material away from landfill through schemes like the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, planners may not allow new landfills to be established once capacity starts to run out.