To start to ball rolling I thought I would try and deal with some issues which have already been raised by individuals and organisations.

Staffordshire’s Zero Waste to Landfill Strategy – what does it mean?

Staffordshire has had a strategy for Zero Waste to Landfill since 2003. The County Council, working with the District Councils and Stoke on Trent City, want to avoid sending municipal waste to landfill because, environmentally, it’s the worst option. In the past landfill has always been the cheapest method of disposal, but soon, due to increasingly stringent environmental legislation, landfill taxes and the EU landfill directive, which results in fines for councils who do not reduce their dependency on landfill, it will become the most expensive option.

Zero Waste to Landfill is a common sense approach which aims to save the council costs and achieve the best environmental results. It is not a publicity stunt, it is strategy that we believe is realistic, can be delivered and will have benefits for the residents of Staffordshire.

What is PFI?

PFI stands for Private Finance Initiative. Put simply it is a means of working in partnership with the private sector to build and operate major projects by using funds and skills from the private sector rather than the council borrowing the money and trying to do the job itself. Private Industry is more experienced in the building and operation of waste facilities than local authorities, they can do the job more effectively and for less money than we can. Once the contract has been awarded, much of the risk of the actual cost of building and commissioning the facility is taken on by the contractor.

If we procure a facility using PFI the government will contribute to the capital cost of the project, thus effectively reducing the cost to Staffordshire Council Tax payers. If the Council borrowed the money for the project directly we would not get any assistance from the government and the cost to Staffordshire would be increased substantially. It would also impact badly on other non waste schemes the Council has in mind, because such a project would take up a large proportion of the Council’s ability for borrowing money. Using PFI allows the council to invest in a major project without having to borrow the money itself. This frees up funds for other projects such as social care, highways, schools etc.

When managing residual waste the council would elect to use a PFI scheme regardless of the technology used. In other words, even if we chose to use an alternative technology to Energy from Waste, we would still choose to fund the project through PFI.

Why do we need such a plant, why can’t we just recycle more?

Last year Staffordshire residents produced 626,000 tonnes of waste, that was 2.7% more than they did the year before. Over the last few years the average increase in waste production has been 1.7% every year. This is due to several factors but mainly:

• Increasing population (at least +45,000 by 2020)
• Increasing waste produced per household
• Increasing numbers of households (+38,000 by 2020)

We expect that waste growth will slow down over the next few years. We hope that by 2015 it will be about 1% per year and that by 2020, despite an increasing population, over all waste growth will be virtually zero. Waste production varies greatly from one year to the next, but on average we predict that there will be slow growth over the next several years. We do not expect waste volumes to fall.

This means that by 2020 Staffordshire will be producing about 700,000 tonnes of municipal waste per year.

Our plans are to recycle and compost at least 55% of all household waste. This will be a tough target to meet. It will require 70-80% of all householders to actively recycle or compost nearly three quarters of all their waste. It can be done, as some of our districts have already achieved or nearly achieved that target.

The waste left over after recycling and composting is known as residual waste. If that waste is not to be sent to landfill, some form of alternative treatment and disposal has to be used. We have based our need for residual waste treatment on the assumption that we will achieve or slightly better our target of 55% recycling.

The EfW facility is to treat waste AFTER recycling, not instead of recycling. The county council remains committed to maximising recycling. We have estimated that we will need between 130,000 and 150,000 tonnes of additional treatment capacity.

Even if we recycled 60% of our waste we would still have about 100,000 tonnes of residual waste needing further treatment. This would require, countywide, 80% of all householders to recycle at least 75% of their waste. We feel that although this might be achievable in some areas, it would not be a realistic target to assume for the whole of the county.

In continental Europe, recycling as been much more the norm than in the UK for many years. Overall household waste recycling rates in the best performing countries, like Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium, range from about 50% to 60%. Interestingly, the primary method of residual waste disposal in these countries with high recycling rates is an Energy from Waste facility. Even in Flanders (an area of Belgium) where a recycling rate of 70% is claimed, EfW is the authority’s method of disposing of residual waste.

Why are we proposing a 300,000 tonnes per year plant when Staffordshire will only need a maximum of 150,000 tonnes of additional capacity?

Whether we treat residual waste using EfW or another form of technology, the facility will require a major capital investment. Once operational there will be an ongoing cost of operating the plant. Staffordshire County Council would be neglecting its duties to the Council Tax payers if it did not seek to minimise those costs. By working with our neighbouring authorities and taking some of their waste, we can substantially reduce the costs that we pay. It would be 50% more expensive to run any facility for Staffordshire’s waste alone compared to building a larger plant which treats waste from neighbouring authorities.

Staffordshire is not an island, virtually all of Walsall’s waste is currently land filled at the Poplars Landfill in Cannock and some of Warwickshire’s waste is land filled in Tamworth. Conversely we export thousands of tonnes of food and green waste to Derbyshire for composting. Nearly all our paper and cardboard waste, plastic waste, wood waste, electrical waste and various other waste streams are sent out of the county for processing and recycling. Achieving the high rates of recycling we hope for is entirely dependent on there being a market for the products and waste materials used for making them. Almost all of these waste treatment facilities are located outside the County.

Especially in regard to the recycling of paper and board, and metal smelting, these are major industrial processes that require the use of very large facilities which we expect other counties to host. Adopting a “little Staffordshire” approach to waste management is not morally or practically sustainable and would result in Staffordshire residents paying more than they need for waste management.

What About Traffic?

Locally?

Because there is no facility currently based at the proposed Four Ashes site, additional traffic will be generated in the immediate area. We anticipate that 100 vehicles a day will use the plant creating 200 HGV movements to and from the site. Most of these movements will be down Vicarage Lane to and from the A5. If an alternative technology was developed at the same site, for example mechanical treatment of the waste, at least 60% of the waste brought into the site would be taken off again creating more vehicle movements than for an EfW plant.

Alternative uses of the site for general industry or warehousing would also potentially create significantly more movements than the EfW proposals.

Click here to find out more about our proposals to improve the road network around Four Ashes.

In Staffordshire?