Margaret P Bates

UK waste minimisation clubs: a contribution to sustainable waste management

The UK waste strategy is based upon the central concept of the hierarchy of preferable options for the treatment and disposal of waste. Minimisation is placed at the top of the hierarchy and the Government seeks to encourage its uptake by industry and commerce as well as householders. It has been accepted that previous waste management policy and practice have not delivered the hoped for movement up the hierarchy. Within the UK, landfill still predominates as the option most commonly used to deal with waste. Movement towards more sustainable waste management practice has been identified as a priority, in the UK, by the present Labour Government. To that end, they have recently produced a series of consultation papers on sustainable issues that set out their vision and confirm waste minimisation as a key strategy for the future. In an attempt to stimulate the uptake of minimisation methodology by industry, waste minimisation clubs have been developed across the UK. There have been around 60 such clubs and they receive support and guidance from a range of organisations, including the Environment Agency and the ETBPP. These clubs have demonstrated that a significant reduction in waste arisings can occur when minimisation methodology is applied. Minimisation strategies often lead to improved resource efficiency and this is reflected in clear financial savings, e.g. the Leicester Waste Minimisation Initiative recorded mean savings, at the end of year one, of 0.26% of joint turnover. The median, however, better reflects the actual savings and it is apparent that even within a successful club there can be a wide range of performance by companies. Not all clubs have been successful and there has been little attention to the causes of failure in the UK. There are marked regional variations in club distribution and the proposed Regional Development Agencies, working with the Environment Agency, need to quickly establish strategies for minimisation uptake.

Sustainable waste management in the food and drink industry

In moving towards sustainable wastes management, the UK Government has adopted a wastes hierarchy. This hierarchy sets out clearly the priorities for sustainable resource use and wastes management: it ought to be the guiding principle of private and public policy, with the emphasis placed strongly on reducing the amount of raw material used. The House of Commons Environment, Transport & Regional Affairs Committee has noted a pressing need to promote wastes minimisation within industrial and commercial sectors and has recommended the introduction of penalties and incentives to encourage industrial wastes minimisation. Despite this, in the food and retailing sector only around 25 per cent of companies were found to operate wastes minimisation programmes. This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of wastes minimisation, in both financial and environmental terms, for the food and drink sector. Large multiprocess food and drink companies have found they can make annual savings of greater than one per cent of turnover by implementing wastes minimisation strategies.

Corby Waste Not: an appraisal of the UK’s largest holistic waste minimisation project

Abstract The UK Sustainable Development Strategy requires that society makes prudent use of resources so as to protect the environment and at the same time maintain high and stable levels of economic growth and employment. Waste minimisation projects/clubs have been a central feature of the UK programme to encourage the adoption of more sustainable practice by industry. More recently, it has been recognised that there is a requirement to link such industrial projects with those that encourage the general public to adopt more sustainable practice. A large and dynamic partnership of local and regional players has delivered a programme of some 17 waste minimisation/resource efficiency projects in Northamptonshire, a County in the East Midlands of England, since 1997. The projects have delivered impressive financial savings and training to over 300 companies, mostly SMEs. The Corby Waste Not (CWN) was a project, based within Corby Borough, Northamptonshire, which has the highest degree of deprivation in the County. It was a holistic waste minimisation project in that it initiated and integrated activities across the whole spectrum of the community. CWN was funded by some £ 148 380 of external funds and was managed by an extensive partnership that included all key local and regional organisations. Project outcomes were impressive by UK standards, the industrial/commercial developments alone resulted in savings greater than £ 250 000 for an expenditure of £ 35 000, making it one of the most cost-effective in the UK. Using theories of planed behaviour, the CWN management team introduced a number of other activities that have resulted in clear evidence of a marked improvement in relation to waste issues by the community.

Enhancing engagement with community sector organisations working in sustainable waste management: A case study.

Voluntary and community sector organisations are increasingly being viewed as key agents of change in the shifts towards the concepts of resource efficiency and circular economy, at the community level. Using a meta-analysis and questionnaire surveys across three towns in the East Midlands of England, namely Northampton, Milton Keynes and Luton, this study aimed to understand public engagement with these organisations. The findings suggest that these organisations play a significant and wide-spread role, not only with regard to sustainable environmental management, but also a social role in community development and regeneration. The surveys indicated that there were generally high levels of awareness of the organisations and strong engagement with them. Clothes were the items most donated. Key reasons for engagement included the financial value offered and the perception that it helped the environment. However, potential limitations in future public engagement were also determined and recommendations for addressing these suggested.

The efficacy of subsurface flow reed bed treatment in the removal of Campylobacter spp., faecal coliforms and Escherichia coli from poultry litter

The use of poultry waste as a fertiliser on arable land is an accepted method of waste treatment. However, run-off from such practices may result in contamination of the watercourse by human pathogens. In this study the effectiveness of using constructed wetlands as an alternative treatment for poultry manure waste was evaluated. Enumeration of Campylobacter spp., Escherichia coli , total coliforms and total aerobes were carried out on influent and effluent samples from reed beds loaded with poultry waste. For both sequential loading and continuous loading there was a statistically significant mean log reduction of 3.56 and 4.25 for E. coli , 3.2 and 3.88 for coliforms, 3.85 and 4.2 for total aerobic counts and 3.13 and 2.96 for Campylobacter spp., respectively. This method, which has been previously recognised as cost-effective and environmentally acceptable, provides an efficient method for reducing numbers of these bacteria in poultry waste and therefore an effective alternative treatment for such waste or waters containing run off from land previously spread with poultry manure.

Analysis of the role of waste minimisation clubs in reducing industrial water demand in the UK

As a result of the UK Governments waste policy, which increasingly encourages sustainable development, and the realisation that water in the UK cannot be treated as an unlimited resource, there is growing interest in reducing the demand for water by industry. A series of industrial waste minimisation clubs have been set up within the country. This paper identifies the effectiveness of these clubs in reducing the demand for water. An overview of some of the clubs show how there is a major discrepancy between potential and implemented water savings, whilst a more detailed analysis of three specific examples show how water demand and cost to the company can be reduced, with the project paying for itself within around 1 year. It appears that companies are able to reduce water consumption by approximately 30%. If this level of saving was taken up by the entire industrial sector in England and Wales, water consumption could be reduced by approximately 1500 Ml/day. This reduction would be more significant in regions of lower rainfall, for example East Anglia and Southeast England.

Strategies to enhance waste minimization and energy conservation within organizations: a case study from the UK construction sector

Strategies for enhancing environmental management are a key focus for the government in the UK. Using a manufacturing company from the construction sector as a case study, this paper evaluates selected interventionist techniques, including environmental teams, awareness raising and staff training to improve environmental performance. The study employed a range of methods including questionnaire surveys and audits of energy consumption and generation of waste to examine the outcomes of the selected techniques. The results suggest that initially environmental management was not a focus for either the employees or the company. However, as a result of employing the techniques, the company was able to reduce energy consumption, increase recycling rates and achieve costs savings in excess of £132 000.

Isolation and identification of Legionella pneumophila from material reclamation facilities

Sampling points at a material reclamation facility (MRF) were monitored over three months for the presence of Legionella spp. A number of different Legionellae were isolated and typed to identify L. pneumophila serogroup 1, the serotype which is the most common human pathogen. Phenotypic methods resulted in a total of 61 presumptive isolates of Legionella spp. Using latex agglutination, 26 out of the 61 were identified as L. pneumophila serogroup 1, 23 as L. pneumophila serogroups 2–14, and the remaining 12 were Legionella spp. However, on typing using pulse field gel electrophoresis, the 26 L. pneumophila serotype 1 isolates were a diverse group of 25 PFGE types with none persisting in the environment over time. This diversity suggests that there are a number of contamination sources for this important human pathogen in the MRF environment which constitute a risk to health for operatives in these facilities.