Waste Management and Pollution Control

Unit 2
Waste Strategy

The Government Waste Strategy

The current waste strategy "A Way With Waste" was produced in 1999. It is the result of several years of consultation and information gathering and is in fact the "sequel" to "Making Waste Work" which was the first waste strategy produced in 1995.

The document can be viewed or downloaded on line or ordered from this internet site:-
http://www.environment.detr.gov.uk/wastestrategy/index.htm

The strategy is produced in two parts; Part 1 outlines the essential elements of the governments' vision. Part 2 provides the information and data that has been collected, (acting as a benchmark for progress), describes the current systems of planning and legislation and provides information regarding the various approaches to controlling waste and developing further systems.

As a document produced in the public domain it is also intended presumably to provide some educational value though at ~ 200 pages may be off putting to many.

The approach although introducing various the elements of waste control and initiatives that can be developed places considerable emphasis on the need for industrial, retail and commercial operations to play an active role and take on some of the responsibility for this.

Encouragement and support for developing systems will be provided through the auspices of amongst others the Environment Agency and ETBPP. In addition the implementation of financial and legislative instruments such as the landfill tax and IPPC will be required, Moreover legislation via Europe will almost inevitably add to this.

The essential element of the waste strategy is waste reduction, i.e. encouraging re-cycling and re-use but also reducing waste at source.

It is in developing the infrastructure an markets for this strategy that the major difficulties are foreseen and time will be required to accomplish much that is laid out in the document. The next strategy update will be produced in five years.

The three key principles for the Governments waste management strategy are;

• Best Practicable Environmental Option
• The proximity principle
• The Waste Hierarchy

Defined in the 12th Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution,

"BPEO is the outcome of a systematic and consultative decision making procedure which emphasises the protection and conservation of the environment across land, air and water".

The proximity principle simply means that waste should be disposed of as near to its place of origin/production as possible.

Whilst the BPEO procedure establishes, for a given set of objectives, the option that provides the most benefits or the least damage to the environment as a whole, at acceptable cost, in the long term as well as in the short term. The document suggests that using this approach to BPEO, those taking waste management decisions (particularly businesses and local authorities) will need to:

• Obtain advice from waste management companies and others with relevant expertise.
• Use lifecycle assessment tools.
• involve local communities as appropriate.
• Take full account of local considerations such as land-use planning.

The Waste Hierarchy rates various waste management options from the most ideal situation where waste production is avoided altogether to the least ideal situation, which is disposal without being able to recover any value.