This web page, "low waste south west", describes the reason why waste is such a growing issue, an overarching strategy and related actions being taken to help move the South West of England towards a low waste future.

A strategy and related actions to help the South West of England move towards a low waste future are listed below under the following themes:

  1. Strategy and National Context

  2. The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS)

  3. Waste Minimisation in Business & the Public Sector

See also Waste Facts & Stats below for general interest and use in your own publicity materials.

The South West Regional Observatory's website has a dedicated page on waste at www.swenvo.org.uk/themes/waste/ that usefully provides comprehensive information and data on the management of waste, waste trends including waste arising/recycling rates & local authority recycling performance against targets in the South West as well as other related information.

Why?

The South West, like other areas of England, is facing a mounting waste problem: we cannot continue to create and dispose of our waste as we have done so in the past. We are running out of landfill space and sending waste to landfill is no longer the best or safest way for dealing with waste.

The Environment Agency (SW)'s anti fly-tipping poster
(click on image for larger pdf version)

The growing number of people who live in and visit the South West region, means more and more waste has to be dealt with. We all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste we create in our homes and at work, whilst recycling as much as possible of the unavoidable waste we create.

Avoidable waste is avoidable pollution (to air, land and water) and depletes natural resources that existing and future generations will need to use on a renewable basis.

The cost of waste is not just the cost of getting rid of it but also the value of what you are disposing of (raw materials, manufacturing & processing time, energy, transportation etc).

With all waste, someone somewhere pays for it!

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1. Strategy and National Context

Strategy

If we in the the South West of England are to help the UK meet national and EU targets for reducing waste going to landfill, raise the recycling and reuse rates for waste produced and recover more value from waste, then the 'waste hierarchy' is the overarching strategy we as individuals, and the organisations we represent, need to adopt. This means:

• First reduce the amount of waste we all produce
• Second reuse as much as possible
• Third recycle
• Fourth we should recover as much value as we can from what is left

Only as a last resort should we dispose of the left over waste and then we should:

• always dispose of waste as close as possible to where it is produced
• make sure we always look for solutions which give the best practicable outcome environmentally
• work together across geographic boundaries for more effective solutions to waste issues.

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The national context

Plans for a zero waste economy. The Coalition Government carried out a fundamental review of waste policy and waste management delivery in England during 2010 with the aim of meeting the Coalition Agreement commitment to "work towards a zero waste economy and encourage councils to pay people to recycle and reduce littering" and "measures to promote a huge increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion".

The results of the review were published on 14 June 2011. The Government's waste review set out the following priorities:

• Consult in 2012 on introducing a landfill restriction on wood waste, review the case for introducing landfill bans on other materials, such as metals, textiles and all biodegradable waste. The Government will work with industry to drive innovation in reuse and recycling in these products before the start of any bans;
• Accelerate recycling and reducing waste creation in the first place by providing incentives for householders, recycling-on-the-go schemes, better services for businesses and voluntary responsibility deals focussing on the hospitality industry, paper, direct mail, textiles, and construction waste;
• Scrap unfair bin fines and taxes while bringing in powers to deal with repeat fly-tipping offenders and genuine nuisance neighbours;
• Crack down on illegal fly-tippers who persistently and recklessly pollute the environment and countryside. We will introduce appropriate powers to seize vehicles, and look at penalties that might include offenders clearing up items they have dumped; and
• Consult on increased recycling targets to 2017 for plastic, steel, aluminium and glass. Targets will be consulted on and agreed in time for the 2012 Budget.

Driving innovation in the £11 billion waste and recycling sector, which employs up to 150,000 people, is expected by the Government to push growth by 3 to 4 percent over the next few years.

Waste going to landfill has nearly halved by 2011 since 2000, with household recycling rates now at 40 per cent and business rates at more than 50 per cent. The Government will publish a follow-up zero-waste action plan on waste prevention in December 2013, to check progress and address further developments under any new EU regulations.

The Anaerobic Digestion strategy and action plan was also published on 14 June 2011. It seeks to enable a thriving industry to grow in England over the next few years, delivering new green jobs as well as new green energy.

The previous Waste Strategy for England 2007, published by the Labour Government in May 2007 included future recycling targets:-

• recycling and composting of household waste: at least 40% by 2010, 45% by 2015 and 50% by 2020; and
• recovery of local authority collected waste: 53% by 2010, 67% by 2015 and 75% by 2020.

The UK is also committed to reducing the amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled, in accordance with European Directives.

Local Authority Collected Waste Statistics for England are published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on a regular basis. These show the proposrtion of household waste sent for recycling, composting or reuse and the amount of waste produced per household and per person. These links (to Defra's website) give access to this data:

• Waste and Recycling Statistics
• UK waste and recycling strategies and the actions being taken at a national level

* Note. Local authority collected waste is that which comes under the possession or control of the Local Authority and includes household waste and other wastes collected by a waste collection authority or its agents, such as municipal parks and gardens waste, beach cleansing waste, commercial or industrial waste, and waste resulting from the clearance of fly-tipped materials.

PPS10 Planning for Sustainable Waste Management (July 2005) replaced Planning Policy Guidance Note 10 (Planning and Waste Management) published in 1999 and forms part of the national waste management plan for the UK. The key planning objectives under PPS 10 for sustainable waste management include:

• the delivery of sustainable development through driving waste management up the waste hierarchy;
• communities should take more responsibility for their own waste;
• secure the recovery or disposal of waste without endangering human health and without harming the environment, and enable waste to be disposed of in one of the nearest appropriate installations; and
• ensure the design and layout of new development supports sustainable waste management.

The latest version of PPS10 can be found on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) at this link: Planning Policy Statement 10: Planning for Sustainable Waste Management.

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations.
Producers of electrical goods were required from July 2007 to meet the environmental costs of dealing with waste products. All businesses who import, manufacture and rebrand electrical and electronic equipment have to finance its treatment, recovery and environmentally safe disposal. The arrangements put in place under these regulations recognise that this is the responsibility of those who produce the goods, and supports broader Government initiatives for dealing with waste that focus on producer responsibility. For further information visit the WEEE pages on the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) website: BIS-WEEE.

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2. The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS)

Launched in April 2005, the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) is intended to provide a cost effective way of enabling England to meet its targets for reducing the landfilling of biodegradable municipal waste under Article 5(2) of the EC Landfill Directive (75% of that produced in 1995 by 2010, then to 50% by 2013 and finally 35% by 2020).

The Waste and Emissions Trading Act (2003) provides the legal framework for the scheme and for the allocation of tradable landfill allowances to each waste disposal authority (i.e. local authorities) in England. These allowances will convey the right for a waste disposal authority to landfill a certain amount of biodegradable municipal waste in a specified scheme year.

Each waste disposal authority will be able to determine how to use its allocation of allowances in the most effective way. It will be able to trade allowances with other authorities, save (bank) them for future years or use some of its future allowances in advance (borrow). This will allow individual waste disposal authorities to use their allowances in accordance with their investment strategy.

The Environment Agency reports on the LATS scheme in each unitary and waste disposal authority in England each year by November, after trading ends on 30 September. For information on LATS and their latest report, click here: EA - LATS.

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3. Waste Minimisation in Business & the Public Sector

South West Energy & Environmental Management Groups
SW EEMGs are independent forums providing continuing professional development, information exchange, specialist training and networking for professionals & managers in industry, commerce and the public sector. Their remit includes the promotion of waste minimisation.

Sustainable Business
This web page on www.oursouthwest.com provides comprehensive information and links to local, regional and national support programmes and schemes covering waste minimisation and other environmental management issues including product design. It also features special management guides including the highly popular "Resource Efficiency & Corporate Responsibility - Managing Change" guide as a management tool for changing the culture of organisations towards improved and sustained resource efficiency.

Waste Information from the EA - help, information and best practice advice from the Environment Agency to help ensure business complies with the latest waste regulations.

Food - Love Food Hate Waste - WRAP's programme to help reduce the nation's food waste (we throw away a third of the food we buy and most goes to landfill).

Future Foundations - the sustainable construction charter for the South West supporting low waste construction methods.

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Waste Facts & Stats

Developed countries use 11 tonnes of raw material to produce 1 tonne of product - DETR (1998)

Nationally, Americans throw away enough aluminium every three months to rebuild their entire commercial air fleet - US Dept of Energy (2002)

The USA consumes 20% of its human population's weight in resources in any one day (2003)

Recycling an aluminium can uses less than 5% of the energy used to make the original product - US EPA (2007)

Recycling steel and tin cans saves between 60 - 74% of the energy used to produce them from raw materials - US EPA (2007)

The recycling of steel packaging in Europe saves enough energy to power three large cities the size of Sheffield each year - Corus (2007)

Steel recycling in the United States saves the energy equivalent to electrical power for about one-fifth of American households for one year - Steel Recycling Institute, according to US EPA (2007)

Producing recycled paper requires about 60% of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp - US EPA (2007)

Producing new plastic from recycled material uses only two-thirds of the energy required to manufacture it from raw materials - US EPA (2007)

434 million tonnes of waste are produced in Britain each year, enough to fill the Albert Hall in London every two hours - Environment Agency (2005)

...since the middle of the 20th century, humankind has consumed more natural resources than in all previous human history - Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State, Defra (March 2005)

93% of production materials are never used in the final product and 80% of products are discarded after a single use - Martin Gibson, Director, Envirowise, addressing ENVEC (2003)

90% of the resources we use in the UK ends up in landfill sites, as effluent, or air emissions - Environment Agency (1998)

61% of people in the UK describe themselves as committed recyclers - WRAP (2008)

A £1,000 wedding ring - equivalent to one ounce of gold - creates up to 30 tons of toxic waste. To produce that single ounce, miners have to quarry hundreds of tons of rock, which are then doused in a liquid cyanide solution to separate the gold - The real price of gold, Daniel Howden (2005)

Over 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean - UNEP (June 2006)

100,000 dolphins, whales, seals and turtles are killed every year by plastic bags being dumped into the oceans - Sea Change by Richard Girling (2007)

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States - The Independent (February 2008)

7 billion tonnes of solid waste enters the world's oceans annually - Ecohouse, Australia (2007)

If each of the UK's 10 million office workers used one less staple each day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved each year. Use a paper clip instead - Environment Agency (2007)

Mobile phones: In the UK we buy 18 million new handsets a year...we discard 1,000 mobile phones every half hour...just a small percentage of those get sent for re-use or recycling - Channel 4 programme 'Dumped' (September 2007)

Batteries: We buy one billion in the UK each year. Most go into [end up in] landfill. But new EU legislation will require us to recycle around 50 per cent - Environment Agency (2007)

If every household in the UK recycled one electrical or electronic item, 73,000 tonnes could be diverted from landfill, or over 65,000 tonnes of CO2. The same as 9500 round the world flights - Defra (2009)

Plastic bags: 17.5 billion are picked up from shops each year [in the UK] - Environment Agency (2007)

Just 8.7 checkout bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 kilometre - Ecohouse, Australia (2007)

Food waste: In the UK we throw away a third (= 6.7m tonnes) of the food we buy at a cost of £8 billion a year and most goes to landfill. If we could halt the amount of food being wasted we would make a big impact; the same as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads - WRAP (November 2007)

UK householders throw out on average £400 per year of good food - Defra (2009)

Britons throw away 1.3 million unopened pots of yoghurt each day - WRAP (2008)

About 44% of junk mail is never opened or read - Technology Partnership Initiative (TPI) News (January 2007)

744 million Christmas cards are thrown away every year [in the UK] - the equivalent of 248,000 trees - Business in the Community (2007)

In 1980 before the introduction of the PC, world office paper consumption averaged 70 million tonnes a year - by 1997 it had more than doubled to almost 150 million tonnes - Global Action Plan's 'An Inefficient Truth' report (2007)

"Half a tonne per person": Europeans generated 524 kg of municipal waste per person in 2008. More than 40% of EU27 municipal waste was landfilled, 20% incinerated, 23% recycled and 17% composted - Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (2010)

If every household in the UK recycled one electrical or electronic item, 73,000 tonnes could be diverted from landfill, or over 65,000 tonnes of CO2 - the same as 9,500 flights - Defra (2009)

40% of the UK's methane emissions are generated from biodegradable material decomposing in landfill sites - Defra (2010)

Recycling 1 tonne of paper (or 200,000 sheets) saves up to 31 trees and the equivalent energy needed to power a 3 bedroom house for a year - Global Action Plan (2011)

If a tree was planted for each Coca Cola sold we would reforest the earth in three years - www.weforest.org (2012)

Note. The editorial team for www.oursouthwest.com accepts no responsibility for the accuracy or sources of the facts and statistics listed and we apologise if we have mistakenly misrepresented any of these. Please remember to credit the author when reproducing any of the facts/statistics listed on this website.

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"From my travels around the world I have seen how much damage and pollution is done by the careless disposal of waste. It is also evident that we in the West produce far more and throw away far more than the developing world, almost without thinking"
Michael Palin, writer, actor and traveller - philharding.net/quotes-corner

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