by Phillip Ward
2 minute read
Ray Georgeson – acting and part-time Chief Executive of the newly formed Resource Association – said at its launch that his greatest pleasure was to be working at last for an organisation that did not have “waste” in its title. It’s easy to see his point, but does this launch signal the arrival of an idea whose time has come?
The mantra that we need a resource management rather than a waste management industry has been around for at least a decade and most senior players repeat it with feeling at every opportunity. But so far the idea seems to be engaging the head not the heart – let alone the more visceral parts – of the waste industry in this country.
The challenges facing the new association are prodigious. Legislative provisions, supply chains, contractual arrangements and funding streams still point back to traditional concerns about waste as the problem; and the logistics of its disposal, as cheaply as possible, as the issue to be solved.
In England, the focus on “Zero Waste to Landfill”, the interaction with energy security concerns and side arguments about collection frequencies for smelly waste are leading Government to miss the potential of a resource economy. Scotland and Wales are addressing the necessary changes far more directly.
There are other, more positive indicators. Waste quantities are declining, and recycling rates are growing. Financial austerity does seem to be affecting our love affair with consumption – or at least the Guardian claims to have detected a change in attitudes. More technologies are coming on-stream which will enable materials to be treated higher up the waste hierarchy – which itself has been brought into the regulatory framework. And the markets for secondary materials are starting to give support for investment.
The challenge for the new Association will be to develop and articulate a clear vision and a few significant but achievable objectives. It will also need to find a distinctive voice and, in a crowded space, that will be difficult. Perhaps the hardest thing will be to attract a membership which wholly buys into the vision. A broad membership may bring more income but risk creating a lowest common denominator public stance. But if the Association can find a clear message and collaborate with groups – like the Ellen McArthur Foundation – which is doing excellent work on the circular economy -in areas where they can reinforce each other, it may be able to magnify its impact without diluting its message. Now that would be resource efficiency in action.
It will be interesting to see how far the Resource Association turns out to be a trade body, and how much it follows through on its laudible ideas on closed loop product lifecycles. Perhaps I am too cynical, but a body set up by organisations with a focus on waste collection and recycling will tend to have an interest in promoting recycling, not prevention – so perhaps it won’t be keen to push the debate as high up the waste hierarchy as its name initially suggests.