As part of Staffordshire’s Zero Waste to Landfill strategy intensive consultations about how Staffordshire should deal with its growing mountain of household waste.

The problem is that each year residents of Staffordshire create and dispose of around 600,000 tonnes of waste a year. By 2020 it is expected Staffordshire will have to deal with an extra 100,000 tonnes of rubbish each year.

In order to meet the aim of Zero Waste to Landfill, we needed to decide how to deal with this waste.

What is happening with our rubbish now?

At present, residents of Staffordshire recycle or compost 35% of household rubbish. The remaining rubbish is either used to make energy at our Hanford Waste to Energy Plant, or is sent to landfill sites throughout the county.

The diagram to the right gives an indication of where the 600,000 tonnes of rubbish produced each year ends up:

What do we want to do?

The aim of the Zero Waste to Landfill strategy is to:

• stop producing more and more waste
• recycle and compost at least 50% of household rubbish
• stop sending household waste to landfill
• turn more residual waste into energy.

Why no more landfill?

There are several main reasons behind our need to reduce landfill sites in Staffordshire:

• Landfill takes up valuable space in our countryside
• Landfill creates more pollution
• Landfill contributes to climate change.

Alongside these reasons, the government has also told councils they must find new ways of treating waste or they will be fined. This means that landfill will soon be the most expensive way of dealing with our waste, putting enormous pressure on the Council Tax.

What happens if we do nothing?

The dangers of doing nothing will see Staffordshire spending more and more money sending household rubbish to landfill. With this, landfill sites will also continue to take up valuable space in our countryside and increasingly contribute to climate change.

Furthermore, natural resources will be wasted by not recycling and composting more household rubbish, and we will not gain as much benefit from residual waste if we do not turn larger amounts of it into sources of energy.

Find Out More

If you would like to learn more about this strategy then you can download our summary document by clicking here.