Comments on: Worth the weight?

By: Peter Jones

Peter Jones — Mon, 28 May 2012 18:34:27 +0000

@ Richard – while AD facilities may be rather more prevalent here than in NZ, in the UK too there still seem to be relatively few companies operating trucks with weighing equipment. There are inevitably concerns about keeping the equipment calibrated, and it is not without cost. Until there is a clear business benefit and plentiful examples of it being used successfully, I suspect that waste firms will remain reluctant to take on the perceived risk of weighing technology.

By: Mike Brown

Mike Brown — Mon, 28 May 2012 09:48:27 +0000

It’s a hangover from the skip to landfill industry (how all commercial waste used to be dealt with). Skip operators work in volume (I still reminisce about the 6 yarder) but pay the landfill operator on weight (a few of which got caught on waste like polystyrene!). Landfills tend to have weighbridges so I guess that partly explains it.

It’s a further anomaly that (and bear in mind landfill tax is on weight too) the actual finances of a landfill are otherwise entirely on a volume (void basis). It’s the void that’s the asset of course (confused further for some by the fact that the ‘volume of a landfill’ changes with time as it settles as a result of degradation). So both weight and volume come into play in disposal, as well as in collection.

By: richard.singleton

richard.singleton — Mon, 28 May 2012 00:08:15 +0000

Fantastic post. The situation is just the same here in New Zealand – although the prevalence of appropriate technologies is far behind the UK. AD is fledgling and many commercial operators lack trucks with the ability to weigh.

By: Phillip Ward

Phillip Ward — Fri, 25 May 2012 08:46:11 +0000

It will be interesting to see whether the implementation of the revised waste Framework Directive and the presumption for separate collections for certain materials will help to start to shift the culture.