Waste Industry Update July 2010
Scotland aiming for zero waste society
Environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, launched Scotland's first Zero Waste Plan on 9th June 2010. The initiative sets out stringent targets of recycling 70% of all waste by 2025, regardless of source, with the remainder to be re-used or processed in waste-to-energy plants, and only 5% being permitted for landfill.
The Plan endeavours to engage businesses, households, communities and public authorities in seriously considering alternatives to disposal of waste, advocating re-use, recycling and recovery of value from products instead. Segregation of waste will be introduced, with mandatory requirements for pre-sorting recyclable materials to encourage the re-processing of those materials with a ‘recyclable value’, and to minimise cross-contamination of waste materials. Introducing separate collections for food waste, the Government claims that of the two million tonnes of food waste disposed annually in Scotland, half of this could provide enough energy to power a city the size of Dundee for six months.
Progressive banning of certain materials such as glass, metal and timber from being disposed of in landfill sites will make important in-roads into achieving both the Plan’s goal of reducing the current six million tonnes of landfill refuse and the commitment by 2020 to landfill no waste which has re-use or recycling potential. The document emphasises the benefits of maximum efficiency throughout all stages of production, from developing and improving ‘closed-loop’ manufacturing techniques, with its focus on capturing, recovering and re-using resources in line with their original intended use, as well as underlining the importance of products being ‘eco-designed’ to take account of the environment at every stage of the product’s lifetime and not merely during production.
In line with the Plan’s objective of providing a stable yet ambitious framework to foster confidence and investment in the economy, the Government demonstrates that the initial financial commitment for businesses to implement cleaner production techniques could be off-set against progressive efficiency savings. This would offer the possibility that value can be added to recovered materials by using them as a platform to make new products of a higher quality, stimulating demand in a market for high-value recycled goods.
In terms of the initiative’s end goal of ‘stimulating public behaviour change’, encompassing all businesses, schools and public authorities and not merely household waste disposal, some of the proposals outlined include offering incentives for recycling, encouraging the use of and dissemination of information regarding the ‘best available techniques’ in the production process, and a ‘take-back’ option for producers to recover value from consumers used goods.
Despite the Zero Waste Plan being widely endorsed by campaigners and politicians, some environmentalists expressed concern that the 25% cap on waste incineration, whilst contributing to the overall zero-waste goal, might instead be viewed as a target and so lead to increasing numbers of incinerators being constructed. Why is this a problem? Again, it is all about efficiency. According to Scottish Greens MSP Robin Harper, incineration of one tonne of waste produces about £20 worth of electricity, whereas for the same tonnage, about £600 in recycled products could be made.
Implementation of the Plan will also see the introduction of a new carbon metric, prioritising the prevention, re-use and recycling of waste with the greatest environmental impact. This is in keeping with the underlying principle of the Zero Waste Plan, namely valuing waste as a potential resource, as using the weight of the waste as the relevant measure, such as with the existing tonnage metric, runs the risk of not actually promoting waste prevention, re-use or recovery, and pays scant regard to the environmental impact of any waste disposed. In practice, then, seeing as the environmental benefit of, for example, using ‘closed-loop’ recycled glass would be greater than using mixed substitutes, the carbon metric would value the former higher.
The Scottish Government believe that the Zero Waste Plan will help set Scotland on a strong footing in terms of achieving the 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and 80% by 2050, but opposition parties have questioned whether the financial resources and infrastructure are in place to implement the action strategies outlined in the Plan.
The full Zero Waste Plan can be accessed at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/06/08092645/11
Mining waste cleared up
The Environment Agency (EA) has produced a regulatory position statement on the implementation of the Mining Waste Directive (MWD), providing guidance for operators on how to ensure that sites comply with the MWD and any permit exemptions. The position statement provides operators dealing with extractive waste on their sites with an overview of the regulatory framework spun out by the MWD and how it may affect an individual site.
The MWD covers the management of waste resulting from the prospecting, extraction, treatment and storage of mineral resources and working of quarries, which it refers to as ‘extractive waste’. The key permitting provisions of the MWD are incorporated into the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2010 (EPR 2010). The Regulations aim to address the key provisions set out in Article 4 of the MWD, by securing the necessary procedures to ensure that material such as waste rock, tailings and overburden, extracted from mines and quarries, is controlled in a way that protects public safety and the environment.
The position statement explains how the regulatory requirements for the following types of extractive materials are set aside, if the operator ensures that the requirements of Article 4 of the MWD are met:
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unpolluted soil from working of a mine or quarry;
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non-hazardous waste from prospecting of mineral resources (except oil, and evaporites other than gypsum and anhydrite); and
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waste from extraction, treatment and storage of peat.
Defra are to consider providing exemptions from EPR permitting for these types of extractive wastes, which would then instead require simply to be registered.
Otherwise, it remains the case that all other operations managing extractive waste on either new sites, or sites which were in operation on 1 May 2008, require the production and implementation of a Waste Management Plan (WMP) under Article 5 of the MWD. These requirements will be delivered through an environmental permit, which operators of mining facilities have until 1 May 2011 to apply for. The WMP must describe techniques for the minimisation, treatment, recovery and disposal of extractive waste, acknowledging the principle of sustainable development. However, the exact requirements for each WMP will depend on the type of operation carried out. The EA Position Statement therefore identifies a number of types of extractive waste operation and the associated range of requirements / level of detail required for the WMP in each case, highlighting that the full requirements of the MWD apply particularly in relation to Category A high risk activities.
The EA’s position statement can be read through the following link:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Research/PS019-MWD_Regulatory_Framework.pdf
Energy from Waste – building the case for Scotland
A report entitled ‘Energy from Waste Potential in Scotland’ has been published by the Scottish Government, which aims to quantify the contribution that Energy from Waste could make to meeting Scotland’s energy needs. The report was commissioned by the Scottish Government for the Renewable Heat Implementation Group and was prepared by the Sustainable Development Commission Scotland (SDC). The aim of the SDC’s investigations was to provide clear guidance on the potential of waste sources to contribute towards renewable heat and renewable electricity targets. The report is published against the backdrop of the Zero Waste Plan, currently under consultation, and therefore takes both existing and planned waste targets as a baseline.
In doing so, the report recognises that Scotland has significant medium term targets for renewable energy: 11% of all heat by 2020, and 50% of all electricity. It therefore analyses existing data on controlled waste streams in Scotland to assess how much energy (heat and/or electricity) might be available from waste-to-energy (EfW) technologies. The report concludes that EfW in Scotland could contribute to approximately 3% of Scotland’s total heat demand and total electricity demand, if the output is from combined heat and power (CHP) plants (the 60% overall efficiency minimum recommended in the Zero Waste Plan consultation effectively ensures that all plant is CHP).
The report provides a detailed account of the basic methodology behind its study. In summary, it explains that this methodology involves making assumptions on:
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the quantities and energy content of different waste streams that could potentially be used for EfW (informed by the Zero Waste Plan); and
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the technologies that could be used to recover useful energy from those waste streams. Direct combustion (incineration) of solid wastes and anaerobic digestion (AD) with biogas capture are the main EfW technologies modelled by the report.
In relation to direct combustion, the report states that in practise in the UK, EfW plants generating electricity are eligible for ROCs if the plant is considered good quality CHP, or if advanced conversion techniques (such as pyrolysis gasification) are used, or if solid wastes are converted to liquid form before combustion. However, anaerobic digestion of waste streams gains the solid recognition as being highly efficient in all respects – cleaned biogas could be used offsite in vehicles to meet transport renewable targets, or fed into the gas pipeline network to displace fossil gas for heating and cooking, and onsite electricity generation from biogas and export to the grid is assumed in the report. Moreover, it is highlighted that all energy from anaerobic digestion is considered renewable.
Finally, the report provides a breakdown of the energy available from each controlled waste stream considered to present a base case (CHP thermal output and CHP electrical output) for the total energy available from these waste streams. The base case assumes that all waste streams will be sorted, with proportions of materials being diverted to re-use, recycling or composting according to the proposed Zero Waste Plan.
The report may be accessed through the following links:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/04/29125800/0
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/311011/0098129.pdf
Under exception – fly-tipped waste
The Environment Agency (EA) has released a position statement on the temporary storage of fly-tipped waste and waste from trash screens other than at the site of production. The statement informs operators that where they comply with the given requirements, the EA will allow the temporary secure storage of fly-tipped waste and waste from trash screens other than at the site where it was produced, pending recovery or disposal of it elsewhere.
As background, the statement explains that the site where waste has been fly-tipped is regarded as the site of production. The same applies to waste which is cleared from waterways from trash screens on waterways. Currently when someone collects these types of wastes and takes them to a site to store them before they are disposed of, then that site requires an environmental permit.
However, the EA’s position is that it will not require an environmental permit where it is established that the person responsible for collection and storage conforms with the following requirements:
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they are the owner of the land or are responsible for the land where the fly-tipped material has been dumped or the trash screen has been cleared;
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they are also the owner of the land or responsible for the site where the waste is stored;
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the total quantity of non-hazardous waste stored at any one site, at any one time, does not exceed 20 cubic metres;
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the waste is stored securely (i.e. cannot escape and unauthorised persons are prevented from accessing it) and for no longer than six months; and
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any hazardous wastes are consigned in accordance with the Hazardous Waste Regulations.
Central to these requirements is the obligation to meet the relevant objectives of the Waste Framework Directive, ensuring that waste is recovered or disposed of without endangering human health and without using processes or methods which could harm the environment. The EA clarifies that in not pursuing an application for a permit it will not normally take enforcement action unless the activity risks undermining the WFD’s key objectives.
For more information on the EA’s enforcement position and to view the EA’s regulatory position, click on the link below:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Business/MWRP_RPS_060_Temporary_storage_of_flytipped_waste_finalv2.pdf
A double penalty for Portugal
The European Commission has had the last word in a recent judgement against Portugal over its waste disposal management (Case C-37/09). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) condemned Portugal for failing to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that waste tipped in the dos Limas, dos Linos and dos Barreiras quarries in the district of Lourosa was disposed of or recovered without endangering human health or harming the environment. The case highlighted breaches of two key pieces of European environmental legislation – the Waste Framework Directive (WFD) (2006/12/EC) and the Groundwater Directive (80/68/EC).
The essential objective of the WFD is to ensure that waste is disposed of in a way that causes the minimum harm to human health and the environment. Article 4 requires that this objective is met through Member States taking the necessary measures to ensure in particular that waste is recovered or disposed of without risk to water, air, soil, plants or animals; or causing nuisance through noise or odours, or adversely affecting the countryside or places of special interest. Article 8 of the WFD further requires Member States to ensure that waste is entrusted to a private or public collection service or to an undertaking responsible for its disposal or recovery.
Portugal’s poor waste management was traced back to the 1980s, when waste from various sources began to be tipped in disused quarries, completely unsupervised by the authorities. This continued until February 2004. It was only upon closure of the quarries in June 2004, that analysis of the water at separate points in the old quarry area disclosed concerning levels of chemical contamination of the water. The ECJ agreed with the Commission that the fact that the discharge and abandonment of the waste had been allowed to carry on unmonitored, displayed a total absence of acceptable waste management.
The ECJ then addressed the levels of chemical contamination in the water content more specifically to conclude that the unmonitored discharge of waste also constituted a breach of Articles 3 and 5 of the Groundwater Directive, which require Member States to avoid certain dangerous substances included in List II of the Directive entering and polluting groundwater. The ECJ held that the contamination reflected Portugal’s failure to have taken the appropriate measures to restrict the introduction into groundwater of the prohibited substances, and had therefore failed to prevent the pollution of groundwater by those substances.
The judgement is not yet available in English. The French text may be read by accessing the following website:
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo1_6308/
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