CRAWFORD’S RAMBLINGS ON WASTE
Crawford’s Ramblings on waste
Let the Trump(ets) sound – the people have spoken and it’s time for the nonsensical EU Directives to be binned
By John Crawford
President-elect Trump! The pundits are astounded, and all sorts of gloom, dire forecasts and predictions have been made following the USA elections. But should we be all that surprised? First we witnessed ‘the people
of Scotland’ (a misnomer since the Referendum only included those living in Scotland, and not all Scots in the UK) voting to remain, followed by David Cameron’s shock election victory. Then there was the surprise election of the new Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, and lastly the vote to leave the EU. Since then there’s been a lot of
John Crawford originally trained in municipal engineering in a Clyde Coast Burgh in the late 60s. After a decade there he moved to PD Beatwaste Ltd (afterwards Wimpey Waste Management Ltd). He then joined the Civil Engineering Dept at Strathclyde University before holding senior waste management posts at Renfrew, Hamilton, Inverness and East Ayrshire Councils. He is a Fellow of CIWM, and served on its Scottish Centre Council from 1988-2009. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, was their President between 1991-92 and edited their quarterly Journal from 1985-91.
hot air about the electorate being ‘not really clever enough to understand what they were voting for,’ or ‘misled by circumstances and events.’ Personally, I think politicians
haven’t appreciated the electorate’s intellectual capacities. The fact remains the establishments in Scotland, the UK, the EU and the USA have been rocked, and ordinary people will need to be listened to in the future, rather than simply the views of pollsters. We now have a US President
who won’t ‘put a post-Brexit UK to the back of the queue for trade deals,’ and who has made statements that will have significant consequences if implemented. Mr Trump says he’ll ‘abolish
their EPA (Environmental Protection Agency),’ a statement I hope is more stump rhetoric than anything else. In UK terms the last thing we
need is to abolish the EA and SEPA, but what Brexit does offer is the opportunity to review existing environmental protection legislation. Then we can strip out some of the nonsensical parts originating from EU Directives (often simply based on dogma), while retaining the parts that work best for the UK. Ideally these changes should be
driven by EA and SEPA staff, who work with the legislation every day (rather than the ‘thousands of extra civil servants’ allegedly needed to make the changes). They should also be required to
take some external advice from practitioners, given the EA currently appears hell-bent on imposing their guidance for Fire Prevention Plans, despite being told repeatedly it should better reflect input from the Fire and Rescue Services. There is precedent for such an
approach. When methane migration from a former landfill blew up buildings on site in the late 80s, the Scottish Hazardous Waste Unit immediately called in top brass from CIWM Scottish Centre and NAWDC (the precursor of today’s ESA), and within a day or two worked up a protocol for identifying sites at risk and control
measures. It’s not rocket science. I previously said why I was
voting to leave the EU and I’ve not heard anything since then to change my mind. My view is that any European-
based company supplying vehicles and equipment to the UK, would be mad to sit back and see markets disappear simply to massage political egos in Brussels. I’m sure there are plenty of
Indian and Chinese companies sitting on the side-lines waiting to take up any slack caused by EU retaliation for Brexit, and if punitive tariffs are introduced these companies will find ways to circumvent them (look how far eastern car manufacturers managed to crack the UK market). Free from EU diversion and
recycling proposals, Brexit will also allow the Scottish and UK Governments to review targets and decide on realistic alternatives in light of our experience that any further increases can only be achieved if dedicated ring-fenced funding for the Councils is re-introduced. Leaving the EU will also allow the
UK to scrutinise the qualifications of continental drivers more carefully, and not simply accept the ‘mutually-recognised’ arrangement that has been criticised recently. If there’s a shortage of home-based commercial drivers in the UK, then surely funding can be found to train extra drivers?
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SHM December 2016 Issue 132
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