Where does your recycling and waste go?
Do you know where yours goes?
Under the UK’s waste regulations there is a very strong emphasis on “Duty of Care”. As a responsible producer it is your responsibility to use a fully licensed and permitted solution to dispose of your recycling and waste. As part of this “Duty of Care” commitment, you should know where your material goes to and what the end-of-life solution for that material is. Are you fulfilling your Duty of Care – do you fully understand what happens to your material?
During the past year about 2.5 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste has been re-packaged or in some cases re-processed, put into containers and shipped to various parts of Europe ranging from The Netherlands all the way as far North to Norway. Some of this material is being shipped by some of the larger players in the recycling and waste sector within the UK. The material on arriving at its end destination in Europe is then burnt in European Energy From Waste facilities to create energy for the location where it has been sent.
This is a complex position for many different pressure groups. An environmentalist might argue that shipping our unwanted material abroad for Europe to deal with is a negative process. Those dedicated to a net zero carbon world would argue that driving waste additional miles to a port to ship it away is adding to our carbon footprint, whilst a university, hospital or commercial facility might feel disgruntled that they are not being paid small rebate for their part in producing a commodity.
Through our work at Sitemark we have uncovered material being shipped in excess of 200 miles to be turned into refuse derived fuel (RDF) and solid recovered fuel (SRF) that has in turn been exported abroad. We also have evidence of some material that has been double handled before its export.
This material is not being shipped abroad because we have run out of our own EfW capacity in the UK. It is being shipped abroad because the Europeans do not have sufficient non-recycled waste of their own to process and keep the fires burning. There are 54 EfW spread across the UK with another 3 in the process of being commissioned and 17 that are under construction. These facilities ensure that the pressure on reducing landfill usage in the UK is maintained and nearly every major conurbation has access to them.
This would suggest that these commoditised waste streams surely have a significant value and maybe it’s time your organisation started to benefit from this solution. So maybe you should start to ask – Where does mine go?
“If there’s a better way to deliver your FM services we will help you find it”
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