South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Joint Municipal Waste Strategy 2007 - 2027 Consultation

I attended a Stakeholder consultation on this on 19th July 2007 and was rubbing shoulders with waste management companies, Government Office of the North East, Environment Agency etc. It was hosted by the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership, made up of Sunderland, Gateshead and South Tyneside Councils.

The presentation was good, but made it clear that out of all the options presented, none were definitely in or out. It was also clear that this was likely to be the only consultation on the strategy, and that some decisions, such as the implementation plan (which would actually decide on the options to take forward) would be taken based on the Consultation responses. It also made it clear that the whole process is being driven forward at a fast pace by the aim to have the option for a Private Finance Initiative bid, which could deliver a treatment facility within the area of the partnership. Again this is not certain, but I think it is highly likely the PFI route will be chosen if possible.

Consultation on line information is at http://www.gateshead.gov.uk/Environment%20and%20Waste/Waste/jointstrategy.aspx

All the above means that it is important that any consultation responses strongly highlight which options they support and those they don't - which is difficult from the online form as it doesn't go into them, but for guidance see below. The consultation runs until 20th August.

Waste Minimisation

1 Do nothing
2 Do some programmes
3 Do all programmes

Programmes include promoting home composting, reusable nappies, education etc

NGFoE would suggest supporting Option 3 (do everything they can)

Recycling and Composting

Options are as follows:

1 Encourage increased Participation
2 Enforcement of participation
3 Collect Plastic at Bring sites
4 Introduce commercial recycling
5 Collect Plastic at Kerbside
6 Collect textiles at Kerbside
7 Collect card at Kerbside
8 Collect Kitchen Waste at Kerbside
9 Collect Waste and recycling on alternate weeks (they call it Segregated Weekly Collection)

NGFoE will suggest supporting all of these options but suggest an order of preference would be kerbsides over bring sites, and also that enforcement and alternate weekly collections should only be introduced after the other systems have been in place for enough time to bed in, and education policies to increase participation have been exhausted.

Treatment of residuals

Options are as follows:

1 Anaeorobic Digestion of Food and Garden waste
2 Anaeorobic Digestion of all waste
3 Mechanical and Biological Treatment (MBT) to produce Refuse Derived Fuel(RDF) as fuel for incineration of some sort
4 MBT to landfill
5 Autoclaving
6 Energy from Waste (EFW)
7 Advanced Thermal treatment
8 Aerobic Digestion
9 EFW with Combined Heat and power

NGFoE would not support any treatment which would rely on thermal treatments (incineration by any other name but essentially Options 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9) but would support other such as 1, 2, 4, and 8. This is because destroying resources is a bad idea, no matter what energy you capture in the process.