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News Editorial


In or out? Do not shake EU membership all about


I KNOW it’s not a popular thing to say, especially with David Cameron’s promised 2017 referendum on whether or not the UK remains in the EU lurking in the background (which will lead to much rabid frothing by the UK’s right wing tabloid press), but to quote the Resource Association’s Ray Georgeson and other esteemed industry bodies (see news item opposite this column) I believe “the overall impact of EU waste legislation has benefited the UK” and like Georgeson and his colleagues, I too “want the UK to maintain a strong role in influencing EU waste policy”.


Never mind if there is a big divide in Europe’s waste disposal


performance (to quote a BBC item published in August last year) whereby several countries in Southern and Eastern Europe have fallen well below EU targets for waste management, the main thing is that the worst performers are being dragged up by their bootstraps. Also, don’t forget that the EU constitutes the UK’s main trading partner


and is worth more than £400bn of business a year to the UK, or 52% of our total trade in goods and services. “The UK is always likely to be better positioned to secure beneficial trade deals as a member of the EU than as an individual and isolated player,” Labour’s Europe spokeswoman, Emma Reynolds, is told the BBC last year. Basically, if the UK was to vote to leave the EU, we run the risk of


sending ourselves into the proverbial waste land where we can bluster to our hearts’ content, but we would have no say in decisions being taken that affect more than 500 million people in EU countries and that is one heck of a significant club to flounce away from.


EU gets waste thumbs up


SEVERAL OF the UK’s representative bodies for the waste and resource management sector have joined forces to express their common positions in response to the UK government’s recent EU Balance of Competences Review. At the end of October, the


government published a call for evidence on the balance of competence between the UK and the EU on energy which aims to analyse the UK’s relationship with the EU. A joint statement from the five


bodies, ADBA, CIWM, ESA, REA and the Resource Association, said: “In sharing our separate responses to the government’s consultation, it is clear that there are strong common positions and concerns about the role of the EU that are shared across the industry. We are clear


Geraldine Faulkner


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© MA Business & Leisure Ltd, 2013. All rights reserved. No part of Recycling & Waste World may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publishing director.


Recycling & Waste World is printed on recycled paper. The paper used is accredited with the Eugropa Recycled Mark.


The paper used within this publication is manufactured from 100% post-consumer recycled fibres. Fibres are sourced from within 175 miles of the chain-of-custody certified production site. This means the paper’s manufacturing process has been chronologically documented across the supply chain. The paper has also been awarded the EU Ecolabel, Blue Angel and National Association of Paper Merchants environmental certificates. All residuals from the production process are reused for cement production, fertiliser or district heating.


Serco unveils waste collection guarantee


SERCO HAS launched the Waste Collection Guarantee (WCG) scheme to residents served by Canterbury City Council. According to a Serco


spokesperson: “Under this scheme, whenever it misses a bin collection, we have committed to donate the cost of the collection to one of three specially selected charitable projects: Umbrella Centre of Herne Bay and Whitstable Umbrella Community Centre both of which are mental health and wellbeing charities, together with homelessness charity Porchlight. All three charities are set to receive £5,000 p.a. for the next two years and this donation will be topped up if Serco misses any bin collections.”


2 November 7 2013 The scheme starts immediately


and residents can sign up now by going online to Canterbury City Council’s website and completing the e-form and selecting one of the three WCG charities at www. canterbury.gov.uk/wcg. Alternatively, residents can call


the Serco helpdesk on 0800 031 9091. Residents must be registered to the WCG scheme for Serco to be able to allocate the missed bin refunds to the preferred good cause.


November 7 - November 13 Issue No. 866 MA Business & Leisure Ltd


is part of the Mark Allen Group


that the overall impact of EU waste legislation has benefited the UK and that we want the UK to maintain a strong role in influencing EU waste and resources policy. “We agree that much more needs


to be done to level the playing field of implementation of EU legislation, especially on delivering common standards for reporting and clarity on definitions and targets to make cross- EU comparisons more meaningful.” “Undoubtedly EU waste


legislation has been a force for good for the UK industry, with the Landfill Directive a prime example of howEU legislation has driven policy forward and transformed our resource recovery industry in the last decade. We doubt that successive UK governments would have managed this alone.


“We want our engagement


with the EU to be embedded and constructive, and respecting the principle of subsidiarity we believe that the UK should continue to embrace this approach - continued involvement in EU policy is good for the waste and resources industry.” Secretary of state for energy and


climate change, Edward Davey said: “The balance of competences review is an important and unique opportunity for people and interest groups to have their say on how we interact with the EU and the effect that EU legislation has on our energy policy.” The government’s public call for


evidence on energy will run for three months until 15 January 2014. A report will be published in the


Summer, 2014. Cory opens Somerset AD plant www.markallengroup.com


CORY ENVIRONMENTAL’S first anaerobic digestion facility has opened in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. The renewable energy recycling


Website: www.recyclingwasteworld.co.uk Twitter: @RWWMagazine


plant is expected to initially process approximately 12,000 tonnes of material each year, including 7,500 tonnes of food waste fromNorth Somerset Council (NSC), and generate 500kw of electricity per hour. A planned upgrade of the green


energy plant is expected to more than double electricity production. Alistair Holl, director at Cory


Environmental, said: “This development represents a major milestone for Cory Environmental as the Weston-super-Mare plant is our first anaerobic facility.


“We took a central role in


delivering this facility, acting as main contractor for the project and construction and also taking ownership of the entire plant and site design. Through careful project management we were able to go from planning consent to energy production in just 18 months, and commencement of construction works to process commissioning in under seven months. “This plant will produce 500kw


of electricity per hour, which powers the plant and is exported to the National Grid. “The second phase of


development will see an upgrade of the plant to a minimum of 1MW of electricity production, doubling our green energy generation at the site.”


Cory Environmental holds a


seven-year contract with North Somerset Council to provide various waste management services including the treatment of all of the authority’s kitchen wastes. The contract includes an


extension provision to March 2024. “As part of the project, Cory


Environmental also assisted NSC to undertake major improvements to the recycling facilities on site. These included the construction of a waste transfer station, and improvements to the household waste recycling centre and road network,” added a company spokesperson. Cory Environmental provides a


range of integrated services from municipal waste collection to recycling, transfer and disposal.


Scrap metal firm warned after failing to meet vehicle and driver standards


THE NORTH East of England’s traffic commissioner, Kevin Rooney, has told a scrap metal firm that a plan to reduce the professional knowledge within its vehicle operation would be “entirely inappropriate”. The industry regulator


summonsed International Waste Metals Ltd to a regulatory hearing after government inspectors reported problems with the company’s vehicle safety standards and driver record keeping. Rooney also told one of


the company’s directors, John Cumberland, that his duties as transport manager for the firm needed to be brought to an end. The decision means that


Cumberland is disqualified from acting as a transport manager in


www. r e c y c l i n gwa s t ewo r l d . c o . u k


the commercial vehicle industry until he can demonstrate renewed competence and “a serious commitment” to the role. During the inquiry, the traffic


commissioner heard the company failed to produce records relating to the work of its drivers and that vehicles had been found with defects and given prohibition notices. An examiner from the Vehicle and


Operator Services Agency (VOSA) reported that Cumberland was not performing his duties as transport manager. Transport managers are


professionally qualified and required to ensure that operator licence holders are meeting vehicle and driver safety standards. Rooney also noted that a driver in the firm’s


employment was convicted in March 2010 on four counts of making a false record of his driving duty. He was fined £750 for the first


offence and no separate penalty for the remaining offences. The company reportedly failed


to tell the traffic commissioner about these offences, as it was required to do. The company has until 22 January


2014 to restore its professional competence. A formal warning was also


recorded on its licence. Cumberland is reported to have


been disqualified from acting as a transport manager until he has attended a full, residential transport manager CPC (Certificate of Professional Competence) course.


Recycling & WA S T E W O R L D


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