Media briefing

Publication date: March 2002

Summary
The UK is in the middle of a waste crisis. New European legislation has spelt the beginning of the end for the polluting and unpopular practice of land-filling our rubbish. This has created a stampede by local authorities for incinerators, which are also hugely unpopular with the public and produce a range of toxic and cancer-causing chemicals.

However, a totally new way of looking at waste is emerging that removes the need to burn or bury our rubbish ; Zero Waste.

As a pollutant, waste demands controls. As an embodiment of accumulated energy and materials it invites an alternative.
(The whole file is 1mb; the report is broken down below for easier download)

Publication date: February 2002

Summary
Waste policy has become one of the most keenly contested areas of environmental politics. At a local level in the UK and abroad, new sites for landfills and incinerators have provoked degrees of civil opposition matched only by proposals for new roads and nuclear power plants. Nationally and internationally, there has been hand-to-hand fighting in the institutions of governance over clauses, targets and definitions of the strategies and regulative regimes that are shaping a new era for waste management.

For those professionally involved in the waste industry in Britain, it is as though a searchlight has suddenly been shone on an activity that for a hundred years was conducted in obscurity. Throughout the twentieth century, waste was the terminus of industrial production. Like night cleaners, the waste industry had the task of removing the debris from the main stage of daily activity. Some of the debris had value and was recycled. Most was deposited in former mines, gravel pits and quarries or, via incinerators, was 'landfilled in the air'. The principle was to keep it out of sight. Whereas consumer industries seek publicity, this post-consumer industry prided itself on its invisibility.

Zero waste report:
Download part 1
Download part 2
Download part 3
Download part 4

A Greenpeace Blueprint

Publication date: November 2001

Summary
This report details a practical strategy which local authorities can use to achieve maximum recycling rates and safely deal with residual waste. Reviewed and endorsed as practical and entirely achievable by Biffa Waste, the report illustrates possible options with examples of techniques and technology from around the world as well as in the UK.

Landfilling of municipal waste has to be reduced for a variety of reasons. The current practice of landfilling mixed municipal waste is highly polluting, as well as unpopular and ultimately unsustainable. Now the European Landfill Directive, which came into effect on 16 July 2001, demands significant reductions in the quantity of biodegradable waste disposed of in this way. As part of the drive to comply with the Landfill Directive, the Government has set mandatory recycling targets for local authorities.

Some local authorities are arguing that incineration is necessary to meet the UK's commitments under the Directive, or to deal with residual waste left after maximum practical recycling levels have been achieved. Neither of these arguments is tenable.

A Better way

Publication date: September 2001

Summary
Some local authorities are arguing that incineration is necessary to meet the UK's commitments under the European Landfill Directive. This position is indefensible. In order to meet the landfill directive targets we need do no more than recycle and/or compost 30% of household newspaper, card and green waste by 2010. This target and the targets for 2013 and 2020 that follow can easily be met and exceeded with technology currently available and in use in other parts of the world. Cities and regions around the world have already achieved much more than this.

Currently operating, state of the art screening and composting systems, can achieve similar reductions in the volume of solid waste to those achieved by incinerators. At the same time they can eliminate the pollution problems associated with incinerators, and provide a useful, sometimes marketable product. ...