Energy and Environment

SUEZ recycling and recovery UK’s new £30 million Material Recycling Facility is set to be fully complete this summer following a fire in 2022.

The rebuild began last year and the exterior of the building is now complete, with interior contractors now mobilising on site.

SUEZ manage the waste and recycling on behalf of Aberdeen City Council. When complete, SUEZ says the material recovery facility (MRF) will have the capacity to process around 60,000 tonnes of recycling every year.

This includes glass, cardboard, newspaper, plastics and metals, collected from households across Aberdeen and Scotland.

Alongside the MRF rebuild, the site will also be home to offices, a waste transfer station, and a visitor centre.

The waste transfer station allows council vehicles to tip off their household residual waste before it is bulked up for processing elsewhere.

Aberdeen City Council co-leader Councillor Ian Yuill commented: “Having a local recycling facility back in place will be a vital step towards a full service solution for improving the quality and quantity of the recyclables we send for reprocessing.

“Having our own facility for managing our recycling helps us provide the best possible recycling collection service for our citizens.”

The offices and waste transfer station are expected to be complete and in use by spring 2025, with plans being developed for the visitor centre to open alongside the full facility later in the year.

SUEZ says groups and schools can visit the centre to learn more about the way that their waste is managed and how everyone can work to reduce consumption and waste.

Specialist contractors Sutco have been appointed to install the machinery that will separate out waste streams at the MRF.

Colin Forshaw, Production Operations Manager for SUEZ, commented: “It is fantastic to see Sutco out on site, installing the machinery that will enable us to start separating out the recyclable materials from households here in Aberdeen once again.

“It’s a busy year for our team in Aberdeen, with lots of positives in relation to waste and recycling and we’re looking forward to being able to host community groups here in the new onsite visitor education centre to tell them more.”

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The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) has announced the launch of its “refreshed and reset” Policy & Innovation (P&I) Forum.

The P&I Forum is a think-tank consisting of leaders, specialists, and academics, designed to help shape the future of the resource and waste management sector.

CIWM says the new P&I Forum will act as a hub for thought-leadership in resources, recycling and waste management, and provide evidence-based insights to CIWM members and stakeholders.

The reset follows a comprehensive review led by the CIWM Trustee Board to develop the forum’s structure and alignment with CIWM’s strategic objectives.

The new P&I Forum approach reflects CIWM’s purpose to “move the world beyond waste”, and CIWM says it will drive collaboration and direction across the organisation’s Specialist Expert Groups (SEGs) for a greater impact and influence on sector research and policy.

Former CEO of WRAP Marcus Gover is the chair of the new P&I Forum. Other members include Wayne Hubbard from ReLondon, Dr Adam Read MBE from Suez, and CIWM’s Early Careers President Charlotte Davies from Beyondly.

The first Policy & Innovation Forum meeting took place on 12 March 2025. CIWM says highlights from the P&I Forum 3-year workplan will be shared with members and stakeholders soon.

“In a period of unprecedented change and opportunities, our reset P&I Forum provides a crucial role for CIWM, the wider sector and beyond,” Marcus Gover said.

“From industry leaders to specialist academics, we are bringing together a wealth of expertise with a deep knowledge of innovative practices, in order to help shape progressive policy within resource and waste management, and identifying vital opportunities for us to move towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient, and more circular UK economy.”

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78% of UK adults would buy fresh fruit and vegetables loose if they were sold that way, according to a new survey by Love Food Hate Waste.

Released on Food Waste Action Week (17 March – 23 March), the survey found that less than half said they would be likely to buy their usual fruit and veg in plastic packaging, such as plastic trays/boxes/cartons (46%) and plastic bags/sacks (47%).

Commenting on the findings, Jackie Bailey, Senior Campaign Manager at Love Food Hate Waste, said: “Buying loose fruit and veg has the potential to significantly cut the amount of food ending up in the bin and we have the evidence that it is what consumers want – now is the time for retailers and shoppers to make that a reality.”

When survey respondents were asked about the fresh fruit or vegetables they buy most often 56% preferred loose compared to 39% who preferred packaged.

77% said they would be likely to buy fruit and veg packaged in paper bags or sacks, which was the second most popular answer followed by cardboard trays/boxes and cartons (75%).

The only packaging format with a lower preference score than plastic was wooden crates (43%).

Love Food Hate Waste is a campaign aiming to reduce the amount of food waste launched by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) in 2007.

As part of Food Waste Action Week, WRAP has called for a consultation on a packaging ban on 21 fruit and veg items, including apples, bananas, and peppers.

WRAP says selling these 21 items only loose could potentially save 100,000 tonnes of edible fruit and vegetables from being wasted annually in people’s homes, as well as saving 13,000 tonnes of plastic film.

Circular Economy Minister Mary Creagh said: “Farmers work tirelessly to put food on our nation’s tables – so it is absurd that households are throwing away £1,000 a year in food that could have been eaten.

“Food Waste Action Week is vital for raising awareness and encouraging people to only buy the fruit and veg they need, use what they buy, save money, and slash food waste.”

Last week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched the new £15 million Tackling Food Surplus at the Farm Gate scheme.

Applicants can apply for grants starting from £20,000 by outlining how they intend to form relationships with farmers to access surplus food, and how they would seek to increase their capacity to redistribute this food to communities.

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An Environment Agency waste crime operation in Lincolnshire has led to Boston Borough Council issuing six £300 fines and Lincolnshire Police issuing seven fines.

Operation Clean Sweep was a multi-agency operation led by the Environment Agency and involved Lincolnshire Police, British Transport Police, Boston Borough Council, East Lindsey District Council, and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

The operation took place on Thursday 6 March and involved roadside inspections in Boston and site visits in Skegness conducted by the Lincolnshire Environmental Crime Partnership.

Teams conducted roadside stops and inspections of vehicles capable of carrying waste, with 25 vehicles inspected in total.

Of the six vehicles found carrying waste, five were doing so unlawfully. The Environment Agency said some had no explanation for their final destination, while two were carrying hazardous waste insecurely.

Two waste sites were visited in Skegness with one site found to be breaching scrap metal legislation designed to prevent metal theft and the other identified as an illegal waste site.

Stuart Hoyle, Environment Agency Waste Crime Specialist, commented: “Large-scale waste crime and fly-tipping can only happen through the use of vehicles, which is why operations such as Clean Sweep are vital for tackling waste crime.

“Last week’s operation uncovered crime, prevented offences and gathered a wealth of intelligence to aid future investigations.”

Callum Butler, Environmental Portfolio Holder at Boston Borough Council, said tackling waste crime is a “priority” for the borough.

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Each person who throws away food waste at lunch in their workplace could generate enough electricity every week to charge a mobile phone 13 times, a poll of 1,000 office workers has found.

The research, commissioned by UK waste management company Biffa, found that despite people taking actions to reduce their food waste at lunch, half of respondents said they throw away part of their lunch in their workplace each week.

The main reasons for throwing away food at lunch was as a result of inedible food waste, such as banana skins or eggshells (45%), busy schedules or plans changing (30%), poor food quality (28%), standard portion sizes too large (25%), and overordering (15%).

The findings come ahead of the forthcoming Simpler Recycling legislation where all businesses in England with 10 or more full-time employees will have to separate plastic, paper, card, glass, metals and food waste from general waste from 31 March 2025 or risk a fine.

76% of people who eat lunch in their workplace are still unaware of the Simpler Recycling scheme.

Commenting on the survey, Maxine Mayhew, Chief Operating Officer, Biffa Collections and Specialist Services at Biffa, said: “It’s clear from our research that there is an urgent need for businesses to improve food waste recycling ahead of Simpler Recycling, but wider awareness and education is also vital.

“By making small changes, we can have an important positive impact on the environment and support a more sustainable future.”

The research also found that 18% of people are dissatisfied with their current recycling options at work, with four in ten not even having a separate food waste bin in their workplace.

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25% of fashion retailers in the UK and US say they have “limited or no visibility” of textile items in factories and distribution centres.

The report by Avery Dennison is based on a survey of 250 senior fashion retail supply chain decison makers in the UK and US and found many were limited in item-level visibility.

The research also revealed that their supply chain is “highly problematic with regular disruptions” for 30% of respondents, while only 22% categorised it as “efficient and responsive”.

The Boosting Margins – The Power of Enhanced Fashion Supply Chain Visibility report found that 61% of the smaller companies, those with annual revenue between $1m and $9.99m, feel they have full visibility.

The research split the companies surveyed into six different revenue categories. Larger companies appear to be impacted the most by a lack of visibility, with 44% of firms with annual revenue above $1bn believing they have a complete view.

Full visibility was found to be most challenging for medium-sized retailers with only 11% of the $250m-$499m revenue cohort saying they had achieved this. Only six out of the 250 companies surveyed had “no visibility”.

50% of those surveyed said their company has “visibility into most items”.

Delia Glover, vice president of product, innovation, and solutions development at Avery Dennison, commented: “Trying to operate without clear visibility into your supply chain – essentially operating in a supply chain fog – makes it impossible to track the movement of inventory and deploy data analytics to reduce waste.”

The research also asked the decision makers to select up to four challenges they face due to a lack of item-level visibility in their supply chain.

Almost 30% cited last-minute changes to garment labelling, which rose to 42% for firms in the $500m and $999.99m revenue size bracket.

26% selected identifying supply chain disruptions in real time, 25% selected reduced agility in diverting orders to alternative suppliers or destinations, and 25% selected inability to meet compliance requirements on materials traceability.

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Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon Waste Management, puts forward his views on plans to bring Energy-from-Waste facilities into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.

Every now and then it is important to look back before we go forward. There is not much sense in repeating the mistakes of the past in the rush towards a noble goal.

I am talking about the UK Government’s plans to bring the Energy-from-Waste (EfW) sector into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It reminds me of when the Landfill Tax was introduced nearly 30 years ago – more of which later.

In order for the EfW and ETS scheme to move forward, operators would have to measure the amount of anthropogenic CO2 that exits the EfW stacks, with the samples used to work out how much we pay to buy carbon credits.

It is suggested (among other benefits) that doing so will help to drive behavioural change amongst waste producers, including reducing the volume of plastics in waste.

I am a big fan of measuring, monitoring and reporting – and see it as quite exciting. Indeed, we are already collecting this data at our Lakeside EfW facility. What worries me is how the sampling and testing process will be managed.

I fail to see how the industry can accurately and fairly, without challenge, measure and calculate an individual waste producer’s fossil carbon contribution. What we can do, however, is use that data to drive change in the composition of waste.

Being able to measure those anthropogenic CO2 statistics and knowing how much fossil fuel carbon is going up the chimney gives us a strong platform to press for the removal of certain types of plastics.

If we made fewer things out of fossil fuels and instead used biofuel-based plastics, the majority of emissions become biogenic. At that point, we hand over to the nascent and ever-developing technology that is carbon capture and storage (CCS).

But I’m probably getting ahead of myself. One of my main concerns about the ETS proposal is simply that it is overcomplicated. It would be much more straightforward to charge us an emissions tax based on the data collected – we don’t need to be trading carbon credits.

The chances of the scheme involving something sensible, workable, simple and chargeable, that ends up improving the environment and the economy is anyone’s guess.

We only have to look back at the impact of the Landfill Tax to consider lessons that could have been learned.

Like most taxes, it was mainly introduced for political rather than practical reasons, as politicians from all parties found their in-trays filling almost as fast as the landfills their constituents were complaining about.

The Landfill Tax solved a few things all at once. Landfill became, along with alcohol and cigarettes, a “sin” and taxed accordingly with the “polluter” picking up the bill.

Politicians were then exonerated as the cause of the “sin”, and a clever tweak to the legislation allowed a proportion of the tax to be used locally by the landfill operator or environmental body for environmental causes.

The tax was easy to understand and apply to customers whilst being set at a level where it was easier to pay rather than change behaviour. In the early years, all it resulted in for the waste industry, apart from a few first movers building recycling plants, was a large capital expenditure on weighbridges.

This all changed when Labour came into power, the tax escalated quickly, along with fraud by certain elements of the industry.

Some sort of trading scheme was established, which only local authorities seemed to understand; and councils, fearing escalating costs and a public hostile to the most sensible alternative to landfill (namely advanced moving grate incinerators with energy recovery), quickly signed off on multi-billion pound white elephant Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plants that residents are still paying for in 2025.

Fast forward to today and the latest government bête noir is combustion of any kind (unless it is wood pellets from America) in case it emits CO2.

That is fair enough unless you have a job to do. Namely, disposing of all the waste that cannot now go to landfills because they are not there anymore.

It feels like a never-ending roundabout from which there is no escape.

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West Midlands Fire Service (WMFS) is urging residents in Birmingham to take extra care when storing and disposing of waste as Unite members vote to extend strike action.

Unite the Union said the dispute is over Birmingham City Council’s decision to “downgrade” Waste Recycling and Collection Officer (WRCO) roles.

On average, Unite said staff performing the “safety-critical” WRCO role will lose around £8,000 a year under the plans.

Birmingham City Council disputed Unite and said its whole team is accountable for working in a safe and responsible way.

An official in the Council told Circular Online that claims that 150 people could lose £8,000 a year in pay are “incorrect”.

They said that the number of staff that could lose the maximum amount (just over £6,000) is 17 people and they will have “pay protection” for six months in line with council policy.

The only way this dispute will end is by halting the brutal and unnecessary attacks on our members’ pay.

A spokesperson for the Council said: “To the small number of workers whose wages are impacted ongoing by the changes to the service (of whom there are now only 40) we have already offered alternatives, including highly valuable LGV Driver Training for career progression and pay, and other roles in the council equivalent to their former roles.”

WMFS said the industrial action has led to rubbish piling up in some areas, increasing fire risks, particularly around high-rise buildings and care homes.

The Fire Service said it is working collaboratively with Birmingham City Council and that they are prioritising collections from these locations, including residents.

Unite accuses Council of using “unlawful labour”

The industrial action may now continue into the summer after nearly 400 workers voted to extend the strike over, what Unite called, Birmingham City Council’s use of temporary labour to “undermine” their industrial action.

Unite is calling on the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, which is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to take action against Birmingham City Council.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham accused the council of the “disgraceful use of unlawful labour” to try and break the strike.

“The only way this dispute will end is by halting the brutal and unnecessary attacks on our members’ pay,” Graham said.

A spokesperson for Birmingham City Council refuted the claim that agency workers have been carrying out work normally undertaken by striking workers.

“We continue to deploy the same number of agency workers on days of action as we would on any normal working days,” the spokesperson told Circular Online.

“The Council would rather not have to overly use agency staff, however, to maintain a service to residents, even when there isn’t a strike, we have to.”

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Three defendants have been ordered to pay fines, victim surcharges and prosecution costs of more than £75,000 for their involvement in an illegal waste site in Northamptonshire.

The defendants were sentenced on 27 February at Northampton Magistrates’ Court for waste offences at Mill Farm near Kettering.

The Environment Agency said 34,000 tonnes of waste was stored at the site with large quantities of mixed waste piled over 10 metres high.

The Environment Agency said officers investigated the site in Great Cransley that David Goodjohn, 64, and his company, Green Infrastructure Ltd, operated without an environmental permit. They have been ordered to pay almost £32,000.

We take illegal waste activity very seriously and will not hesitate to disrupt activity and prosecute those responsible.

The third defendant, Storefield Aggregates, failed to comply with the waste duty of care by sending more than 24,000 tonnes of waste to the site between 2019 and 2021. It was ordered to pay more than £43,000.

Environment Agency Manager Yvonne Daly said: “We work to stop illegal waste activities and support legitimate business whilst protecting communities and nature from harm.

“We take illegal waste activity very seriously and will not hesitate to disrupt activity and prosecute those responsible.”

The Environment Agency sent warning letters to two other companies which also deposited waste at the site.

Staffordshire woman prosecuted for not removing illegal waste

Lissa Appleby pleaded guilty to a single offence of failing to remove illegal waste and fined £550 and also ordered to pay a victim’s surcharge of £220 at Cannock Magistrates Court.

The court was told that officers from the Environment Agency visited the address she was renting at Mill Farm, Cappers Lane, Whittington, Lichfield on October 13, 2023.

The address consisted of a domestic property, large grounds and a barn. The Environment Agency said several hundred tonnes of dry shredded waste was discovered inside the barn, containing plastic sheeting, plastic textiles, metals, wood and cardboard.

Appleby was given guidance that an environmental permit would be required for the activities carried out or for the waste to be removed by a person who held the correct waste carriers’ licence.

The Environment Agency issued a letter to immediately cease activities at the property, believing Appleby was operating an illegal waste site.

A spokesperson for the Environment Agency commented: “This site posed a significant environmental threat due to the high risk of fire and potential impact to local communities and amenities.”

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England’s recycling rate for “waste from households” fell by 0.7 percentage points to 43.4% in 2022 compared to 44.1% in 2021.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) released statistics on local authority collected waste management for 2022/23, showing a fall in recycling rates.

“Waste from households” is the official recycling measure used for reporting at a harmonised UK level.

Household waste is broader than “waste from households” as it includes waste from street bins, street sweepings, and parks and grounds – but it does not include metals from incinerator bottom ash.

In 2022, total “waste from households” decreased to 21.5 million tonnes from 23.1 million tonnes in 2021. Defra said this is equivalent to 377 kg per person, down from 409 kg per person.

The total amount of waste recycled decreased by 8.6% in 2022, falling from 10.2 million tonnes in 2021 to 9.3 million tonnes.

In 2022, the amount of dry material recycled was 5.5 million tonnes, a 7.1% decrease from 2021.

The amount of residual waste treated was 12.1 million tonnes, down from 12.9 million tonnes in 2021, a decrease of 6.0%.

The tonnage of separately collected food waste sent for recycling was 499 thousand tonnes, a decrease of 2.6% from 512 thousand tonnes in 2021.

How are local authorities managing waste?

Local authority-managed waste decreased by 6% to 24.5 million tonnes in 2022/23.

7.2% of all local authority waste (1.8 million tonnes) was disposed of via landfill in 2022/23. This was down by 0.3 million tonnes a decrease of 16% from 2021/22.

49.1% of all local authority waste was sent to incineration; however, waste sent for incineration decreased by 0.3 million tonnes (2.8%) to 12.1 million tonnes in 2022/23.

10.0 million tonnes of local authority waste was sent for recycling in 2022/23, a decrease of 0.8 million tonnes (7.7%) from 2021/22.

Amongst the 333 local authorities in England, Defra said there is considerable variation in “household waste” recycling rates, ranging from 17.7% to 61.6% in 2022/23.

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