Waste Infrastructure Requirements for England

Veolia Environmental Services have operated in the UK for over five decades providing public authorities and industries with a range of water, waste-management and energy services.  They are committed to supporting the UK economy and deliver sustainable and environmental solutions to waste management. As part of this and in response to Defra’s February 2013 report “Forecasting 2020 waste arising and treatment capacity” that demonstrated the next seven years the UK would be over-equipped with waste infrastructure, Veolia commissioned a project in collaboration with Imperial College London to provide a renewed insight into the waste and infrastructure needs of England.

Context of the report

The report “Waste Infrastructure Requirements for England” (April 2014), commissioned by Veolia, evaluated how sensitive the Defra findings were to the assumptions made and concluded that the limitations in their approach restricted its wider application to support decision making. The framing of the overall Defra approach was questioned, and in particular concerns were raised with regard to the limitations in the forecast model used in terms of regional variation and assumptions regarding the composition of waste.

For the first time regional capacity as well as waste composition were assessed in the report. Further, it was demonstrated that the aggregation of waste composition and treatment capacity nationally can indeed disguise regional variations and lead to the misleading assumption that one region’s capacity can meet another’s deficit, which is unrealistic and may not be sustainable.

Key Findings

The Imperial College report demonstrated that is more realistic to consider the quantities of materials arising at regional rather than national level, using compositional data for household and specific waste-streams for commercial and industrial sources. In particular, the amount of BMW that would be allowed to go to landfill based on the 2020 targets was estimated to be 10.2mt in the Defra approach, and around 6mt in the Imperial College report. The difference lies to the fact that the Defra approach assumed that 68% of local authority collected municipal waste is biodegradable, whereas at the Imperial College report the amount of biodegradable waste was estimated based on the different waste fractions. For the year 2009/10, Defra’s approach predicted an overcapacity of around 3.8 mt, clearly contradicting the real undercapacity for that year (indicated as amount of waste that went to landfill) which was closer to around 11mt.

Also, future infrastructure requirements need to be technology (treatment) specific, appropriate to different waste streams and accept that waste cannot be transported from the one region to the other without long-term consequences. This want against Defra’s approach that considered municipal waste as one single stream. Furthermore, the use of the Defra findings to justify significant reductions in funding for new waste infrastructure was seen as problematic particularly where decisions were taken without an assessment of the performance of existing capacity or the viability of planned/proposed capacity. It has called for more powers to be given to local authorities to assess their own waste capacity and needs.

The report presents research undertaken by Dr Nick Voulvoulis and his research group at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. Nick is an international expert in environmental management especially where science and engineering interface with public policy. Richard Kirkman is the Veolia’s Technical director who commissioned the work with Imperial College.

Report Launch and Parliamentary Event

The report was officially launched at Imperial College London on Thursday April 3, 2014 by Dr Nick Voulvoulis and  Robert Hunt and Richard Kirkman from Veolia Environmental Services, followed by a press release. Journalists from Let’s Recycle, London Community Resource Netwrok and many Local authorities’ representatives were present among others.

Since its launch, the report has gained increased attention due to the serious concerns it raises over the ability of the UK to meet its European targets and the clear need for more waste management infrastructure in England to treat the amount of waste generated.

A parliamentary event, hosted by Louise Ellman MP in conjunction with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE)  looking at  waste infrastructure requirements across England, took place in the House of Commons on 1 July 2014. The event examined current issues around infrastructure and the policy issues that affect how quickly infrastructure projects can be delivered in the UK. The Imperial College London report and its findings were the main topic of discussion.

Estelle Brachlinoff, the Chief Executive of Veolia, Stephen Tetlow the Chief Executive of IMechE and Dr Nick Voulvoulis from Imperial College talked at the event that many distinguished guests including politicians, civil servants, and policy advisers attended.