Waste Watch - November 2011

This Update contains brief details of recent Government and EU publications, legislation, cases and other developments in England and Wales relevant to those interested in municipal waste management, which have been published in the past month.

Items are set out by subject, with a link to where the full document can be found on the internet. All links are correct at the date of publication.

If you have been forwarded this update by a colleague and would like to receive it direct please email Claire Booth.

The following topics are covered in this update:

Infrastructure	Recycling
London	Waste Management
Pollution Prevention and Control	Waste Minimisation

Infrastructure

HM Treasury: Government plans to reform PFI model: the Chancellor has announced a fundamental review of the PFI delivery model, with the aim of  creating a new model for delivering public assets and services that takes advantage of private sector expertise, but at a lower cost to the taxpayer. Its approach to reform of the PFI model will look to create a model which is cheaper, accesses a wider range of private sector financing sources and strikes a better balance of risk between the private and the public sectors. HM Treasury is issuing a call for evidence on 1 December. (15 November 2011)

HM Treasury: National Infrastructure Plan 2011: alongside his Autumn Statement to Parliament, the Chancellor has published the latest National Infrastructure Plan which sets out the Government’s strategy for developing infrastructure across many sectors, including waste management. The Plan commits the Govenrment to a set of ambitions for improving infrastructure performance, including reducing waste sent to landfill, increasing recycling rates and moving towards a zero-waste economy.  Key measures announced include allowing local authorities more flexibility to support major infrastructure - as part of its commitment to enable Tax Increment Financing, the Government will also consider allowing city mayors to borrow against future Community Infrastructure Levy receipts where this can make a significant contribution to national infrastructure. The Plan sets out the actions that are already being taken to meets the Gvoenrment's obligations under the EU Landfill and Waste Framework Directives and to implement its policies on waste, and it confirms previous announcements regarding recycling, municipal waste and delivering a zero waste economy. (29 November 2011)

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London

Mayor of London: London's wasted resource – The Mayor's Municipal Waste Management Strategy: sets out the Mayor’s policies and proposals for reducing the amount of municipal waste produced, increasing the amount of waste reused, recycled or composted, and generating low carbon energy from waste remaining. it also sets out how the Mayor, through the London Waste and Recycling Board, will help develop more waste management infrastructure in London. (18 November 2011)

Mayor of London: Making business sense of waste – The Mayor’s Business Waste Management Strategy: this is the first Mayoral strategy for London’s business waste. It sets out initiatives to help all kinds of London’s businesses to save money and reduce harm to the environment through better waste management. (18 November 2011)

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Pollution Prevention and Control Environment Agency: Introducing pollution prevention PPG 1: seeks views on a revised version of the guidance note “General guide to the prevention of pollution: PPG 1” that helps businesses understand their environmental responsibilities and improve their environmental performance. It includes updated legal references, more good practice advice and directs people to further information. The title of the guidance is being changed to “Introducing pollution prevention: PPG 1”. The consultation closes on 3 February 2012. (14 November 2011)

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Recycling WRAP: Benefits of re-use: WRAP has developed a specific methodology for quantifying the impacts of reusing products, which can be applied to a range of products using an accompanying Excel-based tool to provide a consistent means of assessing the impacts of different activities. The aim of this methodology and accompanying tool is to help WRAP, its funders and partner organisations to quantify the key environmental and economic impacts of reuse. The tool allows the calculation of three environmental indicators (CO2 emissions, energy demand and resource depletion), and two economic indicators (number of jobs and cost impacts), as well as identifying where these occur in the supply chain. (15 November 2011)

DEFRA: Legal changes to safeguard flexible household recycling services: announces that DEFRA will make technical changes to the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 to ensure that the legislation is in line with new EU rules, including guidance which is currently undergoing consultation. The changes will mean that local authorities will be able to choose the types of recycling services local people want, while ensuring quality recycling is collected. (24 November 2011)

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Waste Management DEFRA: Local authority collected waste for England – 2010-11 Final Annual Estimates: these annual results summarise waste collected and managed by local authorities in England and the regions between the financial years between 2009/10 and 2010/11. Based on data submitted to WasteDataFlow, they show that 41.2% of household waste in England was sent for recycling between April 2010 and March 2011, increasing from 39.7% the previous year. The tonnage of local authority collected waste sent to landfill decreased by 8.8% to 11.4m tonnes between the financial years 2009/10 and 2010/11. (3 November 2011)

Welsh Assembly Government: Local authority municipal waste management report, 2010-11: this statistical bulletin contains information about the amount of local authority municipal waste (LAMW) collected from household and non-household sources and the levels of recycling in Wales in 2010-11. It shows that the total amount of LAMW in Wales has continued to fall since its peak in 2004-05, with 1.62m tonnes produced in 2010-11, while the percentage of LAMW that was reused, recycled or composted in Wales has seen a continued increase since 2000-01 to over 45% in 2010-11. (3 November 2011)

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Waste Minimisation DEFRA: New service for householders to stop unwanted advertising mail: reports that DEFRA has agreed a Responsibility Deal with the Direct Marketing Association on reducing the amount of unwanted direct mail. The deal includes a free-to-use website where householders can opt-out of receiving all types of advertising mail, along with a range of initiatives which aim to improve the environmental performance of the direct marketing industry. (1 November 2011)

Mayor of London: Mayor calls on London businesses to stamp out food waste: alongside the publication of his Waste Management Strategies (see above), the Mayor is urging businesses and the public to sign up to a pledge to reduce the mountains of food needlessly thrown away and sent to landfill. He is calling on people to follow a simple Food Waste Pyramid guide to minimise how much edible food is wasted: 

1. avoid buying surplus food; 
2. redistribute any unwanted food to charities which then provide it to people in need
3. food unfit for human consumption should be fed to livestock where possible; and 
4. it should be disposed of through composting and processes such as Anaerobic Digestion.

(18 November 2011)

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