Isonomia

by Phillip Ward

Defra’s much-delayed Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) Code of Practice and the accompanying Quality Action Plan have now been published. Most of the reaction has been positive, but not from the Resource Association which represents the businesses that have to use the output of the recycling system. I think they are right to be disappointed and need support in persuading Defra that their current proposals will not achieve their stated objective. Defra’s aims are set out clearly enough:

Read more on Code of Practice not made perfect?…

by Adam Baddeley and Chris Cullen

Following on from our blog piece on the treatment capacity of the ‘Big 7’ waste management players in the UK, we have decided to examine the balance between contracted and non-contracted residual waste treatment capacity in the pipeline. By ‘contracted capacity’ we mean facilities that have signed a long-term local authority (LA) contract; ‘non-contracted’ capacity may be facilities that are intending to operate in the merchant sector, or could be currently involved in a procurement process for a local authority contract.

Read more on Waste infrastructure: consenting, contracting and construction…

By Mike Brown

Why isn’t merchant residual waste infrastructure getting built? Millions of tonnes of non-recyclable commercial and industrial (C&I) waste is being landfilled each year when it could be moved up the hierarchy. Meanwhile there is enough capacity with planning consent to treat 5 million tonnes per year more waste than we landfill, but many facilities remain just blueprints.

Read more on Waste infrastructure: planning to fail…

By Bert Biscoe

Cornwall may be a geographically peripheral region, but it has a world-competitive brand as a richly endowed visitor destination and produces inventive, creative brains and ideas. We have also been innovators in business – Cornish miners pioneered the global mobility of skilled labour – and the former Council’s decision to run waste disposal through a company that made it profitable was a wise one. County Environmental Services (CES), the Council-owned, arms-length company that functioned as Cornwall’s waste disposal service, had really only just begun to show what it was capable of when the decision was taken to contract waste management out to SITA.

Read more on Cornwall will count the cost of contracting out…

By Chris Cullen

Last month I attended a conference on mixed plastics recycling sponsored by Nestlé, the major food producer. They had reached a plateau in their efforts to increase the recycled content of their plastic packaging. The problem, as they saw it, was that there was insufficient UK infrastructure to sort and reprocess mixed plastic packaging, forcing then to rely primarily on virgin plastic.

Read more on Chickens, eggs and mixed plastics…