Waste Management

From Waste to Resource 5

Improving Waste Management in Bristol - November 2006

RECYCLE

The more that recyclable wastes are mixed up, the less easy it will be to recycle them. So separation at source is very important.

With so many materials to deal with, that's not easy, especially where space is restricted. In residential areas where there are many multi occupancy houses and blocks of flats, we need far more mini recycling sites as the individual households have little space to store pre-separated recyclables. We suggest that can crushers could be provided to reduce the volume of metal waste awaiting collection and wormeries could be established for kitchen waste.

People should feel good about recycling - but all too often it's presented as a civic duty, a nuisance task. It helps to know what will happen to what's put in the black box, or the food scraps bin when it leaves your doorstep and why it is important environmentally that we should be doing it, aside from financial considerations

There's a demand for plastics recycling in Bristol - but all we've got at the moment are supermarket skips that only take plastic bottles. The excuse is that a doorstep collection service would cost about £2 million, or £16 pa for the average householder. It may be relevant too that plastic, as a lightweight waste, won't count for very much toward government set targets.

Even so, many local authorities do collect plastics at the door and we want Bristol Council to look at this option more thoroughly. Separated plastics can be reprocessed to form new plastics; they can make new materials, from fleeces to fenceposts. Yet Bristol buries its plastics!

Our paper on green wastes explores the problems and possible solutions for household organic wastes. The changes to collection of organic wastes in Bristol during 2006 have been well intentioned and good in principle, but badly presented and implemented 'on the hoof' without much forethought. Our priority is home composting; then community composting; then civic composting within the city boundary. So spread the word - why not make compost available to residents of Bristol for use in the gardens where the green compost came from in the first place!
     

'RECYCLE' Policies

• Re-examine the potential for doorstep plastic collections, with reference to other councils that do provide such a service.
• At 'bring' sites, provide information/artwork to show the future of the deposited materials
• Improve bring site management to ensure that there is always capacity to receive recyclable waste
• Progressively replace street litter bins with 'split bins' to separate recyclables and residuals
• Provide more mini recycling sites in areas of high density homes
• Encourage new community initiatives for recycling; in the community and in schools and public buildings, using such incentives as recycling credits. Identify suitable land and processes for 'community compost' ventures.
• Expedite the provision of at least one facility within the city for the in-vessel composting of the city's food and green waste, buying (and/or marketing) the end product for reuse in the city.

     

From Waste to Resource 4

Improving Waste Management in Bristol - November 2006

RE-USE

There are numerous outlets in the city that can take surplus household goods and put them to good use instead of dumping in landfill. The Bristol based Community Recycling Network is a good starting point. Others in Bristol include

• EMAUS off Midland Road (household goods and furniture)
• the Sofa Project in Old Market (furniture and white goods),
• Action Aid in St Philips (print cartridges, mobile phones)
• the Childrens Scrapstore in Sevier St.(business stationery and fabrics, and locally collected domestic items)
• the Wood Recycling Project in Cattle Market Road, and
• Bristol Computers4Palestine (Computers and peripherals, digital cameras etc)

Bristol Council can offer recycling credits or other help reflecting the waste management costs saved by the council - to help groups like these that help divert reusable wastes away from council responsibility [govt. guidance (pdf. file) here]. As yet, they don't, although the income could help such organisations continue their work of giving new life to goods and providing employment.

At a domestic level residents can use many resources to give unwanted goods an extra lease of life. Charity shops, car boot sales, E-Bay, auctions, Bristol FreeCycle, LETS schemes. The Green Party would publicise these organizations and support them in every way possible.

Lending is an effective waste reduction strategy. Local Libraries have a vital role to play, not only books but music and toys are available. The Green Party would encourage organisations to lend tools and equipment that are only needed occasionally.

'REUSE' Policies

• Support community enterprises that extend the life of discarded household goods with 'recycling credits' reflecting the saved costs of disposal.
• Maintain a public list of organisations and networks that can find new uses, or new users, for surplus goods

From Waste to Resource 3

Improving Waste Management in Bristol - November 2006

2. REDUCE

The council should be an example of good practice to other organizations, with a waste audit on its own activities, aiming to reduce waste to zero. This can be part of reducing its own environmental footprint through rigorous annual target setting. Schools can be encouraged to adopt environmental charters.

Personal steps...

Look around your home, school, office, hospital, factory, workplace and think if there are any practical ways in which consumption can be reduced. For instance

• Using a glass instead of a plastic cup for water is a good way to start!
• Shopping, particularly food shopping, is probably the main activity that can lead to reduction. We are so conditioned towards being consumers that we have become reduced to credits on the retailers' spreadsheet. About a third of all the food we buy gets thrown away!
•  Disposable batteries for so many electric toys and gadgets add toxicity to the waste stream, and work out pretty expensive for the consumer. These days, rechargeables are cheap and easy.
• Disposable nappies have taken over much of the supermarket shelves and 3% of the whole household waste stream - and they can't be recycled. Modern re-usable nappies have many advantages and none of the drawbacks; more information about the local scene here.
• Likewise, the uninvited junk mail that lands on our doorstep has to be disposed of at everyone's expense. Getting it stopped isn't too difficult, by using the Mailing Preference Service to prevent addressed items and the Royal Mail itself to opt out of their own unaddressed mail service

'REDUCE' Policies

• Develop the council's existing guides to waste reduction (leaflet and website) to achieve wider distribution.
• In new developments, use planning powers to encourage shared use amenities, eg car share/club, tools, guest rooms, recycling storage.
• In its own purchases, to take into account final waste disposal costs as part of EMAS acceditation and footprinting

From Waste to Resource 2

Improving Waste Management in Bristol - November 2006

2. GENERAL POLICIES

Introduction

The Green aim is ZERO WASTE. Throw out as little as possible, and get the very best value out of what is collected. On a finite planet, NOTHING should be wasted.

If you can't reuse it, perhaps someone else can. If it can't be reused, it can be recycled. If it can't be recycled, it may produce heat and power.
   

Summary

Local Councils' powers to deal with waste are restricted by centralised government but they can still make an enormous difference.

Ever greater improvements can be made by individuals, by the public and commercial sectors. Sometimes Local Councils can offer support to local initiatives. Some of the local 'doorstep' problems can be overcome simply by a personal chat.

Our guiding principles are to keep waste production within environmental limits; maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of all resource management; shift from finite resource use to renewables. This means very big cuts in waste production at or near source; making best use of products and materials; minimizing any immediate and future risk of pollution; tracking progress towards zero waste with the right indicators.
      

Background

A growth at any price economy means ever rising consumption and that means ever rising waste and pollution.

Even now, if everyone around the world enjoyed our UK lifestyle, we would need three planets to provide the resources. So, it is vital that we should find new ways to make our resources go further and much more cleanly.

Municipal solid waste or MSW is the stuff that leaves our homes house in a wheelie bin or a recycling container - and it is the tip of the iceberg. For every kilo of MSW, somewhere else in the economy 15 kilos of waste has already been created mostly in the manufacture and distribution of goods that we buy.

A Local Council's duties and powers are very closely defined by Westminster which is in turn regulated by European legislation. There is not much freedom for localized power although it is certainly needed.

As "unitary" Councils, Bristol, B&NES, South Glos and Somerset are all Waste Collection Authorities and Waste Disposal Authorities. They act independently on everything except disposal of non-recyclable wastes. As the "West of England Partnership" they are currently co-operating on planning mutual waste disposal operations.
   

MSW - Current Practice

Bristol has a very poor recycling history having relied on landfill as a cheap disposal route for most of the 160,000 tonnes a year of waste, which is an average of 1 tonne per household, for many years. In 2004/5 it had dropped to 364th place among Britain's 393 Councils.

During 2006, heavy financial penalties for landfilling organic waste have lead to a new more adventurous regime in Bristol. The 'black box' collections of dry recyclables have been augmented by new collections for composting of cardboard, garden waste, and (crucially) food wastes. This looks like raising Bristol's 17% recycling rate to nearer 40% - though there's a long way to go before we match the very high recycling rates in some other European cities.

SITA the main contractors collect most of what we throw out - either fortnightly in black bins for disposal in landfill or weekly in green bins as a "paid for" garden waste service, plus brown bins for waste food and loose cardboard which all go for composting. ECT who are a social enterprise organisation make a separate weekly collection of dry recyclables, paper, metal, glass, batteries, textiles.

 

 The Council is also responsible for two civic amenity sites at Avonmouth and St Phillips Marsh. They also act as waste transfer stations, packing and despatching the green waste by road for composting in Dorset and remaining wastes by rail to landfill sites in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. We deplore the "waste" miles incurred. The establishment of local composting plant, to treat the organic wastes to the standards of the Animal By-products Regulations and to produce compost to BSI PAS 100 standard, is long overdue.
   

Why leave it to the Council?

There are many potential partners to help the city provide sustainable and economic waste management services.

Nationally, organisations like the Recycling Consortium (based at the Create Centre), and the Waste and Resources Action Programme WRAP can provide invaluable expertise.

There are exemplary community initiatives elsewhere... for instance the East London Community Recycling Partnership who are operating innovative schemes including food waste collections from blocks of flats and government departments. In Kent, WyeCycle has for a long time lead the way in community composting and recycling. The Community Composting Network (www.communitycompost.org/) provides invaluable networking and information sharing.

Bristol is fortunate in having a strong 'community enterprise' tradition that is already absorbing and using some of the so-called 'waste' that we no longer have any use for.

Bristol Green Party would encourage more involvement with local groups and organizations to manage waste than is the case with Bristol Council at the moment.
   

General Policies

• To test all policy and decisions against the waste heirarchy: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Recover
• To encourage local people to take direct responsibility for waste minimisation and management - through education, encouraging community enterprises, and by example. The 'waste doctor' initiative has already made a valuable contribution, and might be expanded with the help of neighbourhood/community groups.
• To provide fast and effective litter removal and reduction, while encouraging appropriate punishment of offenders.
• To develop, together with the commercial sector, effective ways to reduce their contribution to the municipal waste stream.
•  Examine the possible role of local currencies or LETS (Local Exchange and Trading Schemes) in mobilising community involvement.