How do we optimise resource use? Use the power of the


marketplace By Angus Macpherson, Managing Director of The Environment Exchange


Policy Developments According to the Scottish Government the waste industry is no longer a waste industry, it is a resource industry. This statement may startle some and the Zero Waste slogan seems a little ambitious. However the theme that is being picked up in Scotland (and Wales) is based on a European strategy focused on (secondary) raw materials and, although possibly differently expressed, it must be anticipated that this theme will be broadly replicated in England once the waste review is published. The ambition is clear-it remains to move everything up the waste hierarchy. Landfill is still the option of final resort, and to achieve this, source segregation and separate collection are the tunes to which everyone is anticipated to be dancing.


Landfill bans are a possibility although concerns remain whether they can be effectively policed. Uncertainty also exists as to how source segregation and separate collection might be defined and therefore policed. The desire is still that to retain flexibility these definitions should be provided in guidance rather than legislation. A potential clash also exists between targets – which are viewed by politicians as aspirational and therefore potentially unachievable – and the legislative imperative that businesses have to achieve them, regardless of how unachievable they may be. As these aspirational targets fluctuate, many in mid-tender are finding themselves trying to strike a moving target.


As a result of this shift in perception and the increased costs in landfill, it is hoped that a greater volume of resource – secondary raw material – will be created and that this resource will have a greater value enabling collection systems to be self-financing. Is this an ambition too far or a realistic opportunity? In any economic model increased supply is frequently associated with reduced prices.


|86| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE


©Lars Lachmann-photoexpress

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