Waste Management
Thursday July 31st 2008, Kingsway Hall Hotel - London, 09:15 - 16:00
The Waste Strategy for England 2007: The Vision for Sustainable Waste Management
"The case for reducing the amount of waste we all produce is clear - it is damaging the environment and contributing to climate change. Furthermore it makes no financial sense to keep dumping it into holes in the ground. We need to work out the best way to achieve this. Local authorities have asked for incentive schemes as one of their options."
Joan Ruddock MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Climate Change, Bio-diversity and Waste), November 2007
Overview
Refuse collection is one of the most visible of all council provided services and, therefore, one of the hottest political issues. With much discussion both in and outside of the town hall on alternate waste collection, charging households for the amount of waste they throw away, environmental concern linked to the excessive packaging of consumer products, and the possibility of imposing a levy on single-use, plastic bags, waste management issues have moved towards the top of the news agenda.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change is the key political issue of our time. The Waste Strategy for England 2007, published by Defra in May 2007 and produced within the framework of the Climate Change Bill, sets national targets both to reduce household waste by 45% by 2020 and to increase the recycling or composting of all household waste to 50% over the same period.
Each year England produces 100m tonnes of waste – household, commercial, industrial, demolition - including over 3m tons of food waste that is sent to landfill sites. Despite meeting its 2005 target to recycle 25 per cent of household waste, the UK lags way behind most of its European neighbours on waste recycling. A waste management strategy centred on landfill is clearly no longer sustainable. Many landfill sites are likely to reach their full capacity within the next decade, and there is mounting opposition from local communities to the building of incinerators in their neighbourhoods.
Furthermore, from 2008 the Landfill Tax will increase by £8 a tonne each year while, from 2010, local councils face the prospect of being fined £150 per tonne if they exceed their landfill allocation without purchasing further allowances. Therefore, a plan both to reduce the amount of waste we produce and to increase amount that we recycle must be very quickly brought in to action.
| 09:15 | Registration, Coffee and Networking |
| 10:00 | Chair’s Welcome Address Professor Paul S. Phillips, SITA Centre for Sustainable Waste Management, University of Northampton |
| 10:10 | Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Changing Attitudes, Taking Action Cllr Ian Mearns, Deputy Leader, Gateshead MBC, Vice-chairman, Environment Board, Local Government Association (LGA) Kit Strange, Secretary General, Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+) Cllr Eddy Alcock, Portfolio Holder Environment and Waste Management, Suffolk County Council Bryn Griffiths, Assistant Director, Environmental Services, Suffolk County Council Deborah Sacks, Regional Waste Planning Officer, East of England Regional Assembly |
| 11:30 | Questions and Answers Sessions 1 |
| 12:00 | Coffee Break and Networking |
| 12:20 | Moving Forward: Some Challenges Phillip Ward, Director, Local Government, WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) |
| 12:40 | Questions and Answers Sessions 2 |
| 13:00 | Lunch, Coffee and Networking |
| 14:15 | Coordinated, Sustainable Waste Management Solutions Dr Michael Warhurst, Senior Waste Campaigner, Friends of the Earth Giorgia Iacopini, Researcher, New Local Government Network (NLGN) Graham Randles, Programme Manager, Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code Phillip Russell Head of Wastes Management, Customers & Communities Directorate, West Sussex County Council |
| 15:25 | Questions and Answers Sessions 2 |
| 16:00 | Chairs Summary and Conclusions |
Audience
Delegates for this event will be drawn from central, local government, the public, third and voluntary, regional procurement organisations, NGOs, RDAs, universities, research establishments, executive agencies and housing corporations