Municipal Waste Management Strategy
Table of Contents amendments 01.0813/04/2004
summary 4
CURRENT SITUATION 9
1 Wrexham 9
1.1 Geography 9
1.2 Industry and Economy 9
1.3 Population 10
1.4 Council organisation 10
2 Refuse Collection 14
2.1 Legislative requirements 14
2.2 Review of current service arrangements 14
2.2.1 Household waste 14
2.2.2 Trade Waste 20
2.2.3 Other waste 20
2.2.4 Litter, fly tipping and abandoned vehicles 22
2.2.5 What happens to Wrexham’s rubbish? 23
Waste education 24
2.4 What’s in our rubbish? 24
2.5 Comparison of Performance 25
FUTURE OBJECTIVES 28
3 Why should we change? 28
3.1 Sustainability 28
3.2 Waste Generation 28
3.3 Environmental and Economic Costs of Landfill 29
3.4 Legislation 31
3.5 Planning Policy 33
3.6 Targets 36
3.6.1 Landfill Directive 36
3.6.2 Welsh Assembly Government Policy 36
3.6.3 Packaging waste 39
3.6.4 What does this mean for Wrexham County Borough? 39
3.7 Budgetary and Contractual Constraints 39
3.8 Community Aspirations 41
3.8.1 Collated Data from Waste Strategy Questionnaire “Dealing with our rubbish” 44
3.8.2 Citizens Panel Survey 10 – August 2003 48
3.9 Market Demand 50
4 Wrexham County Borough Council Waste Management Objectives 52
4.1 What’s been achieved so far? 52
4.2 What still needs to be achieved? 52
4.3 What’s a priority? 52
4.4 Wrexham County Borough Council Objectives 53
4.5 Wrexham County Borough Council Municipal Waste Management Policies 53
Achieving Our Objectives 55
5 How can we achieve our objectives? 55
5.1 Waste reduction 55
5.1.1 What are our options for achieving waste reduction? 56
5.1.2 Options appraisal 57
5.1.3 What do we propose to do? 59
5.2 Recycling 61
5.2.1 What are our options for achieving our recycling targets? 61
5.2.2 What do we propose to do? 68
5.3 Composting 71
5.3.1 What are our options for achieving our composting targets? 72
5.3.2 Community composting 72
5.3.3 Household recycling centres 73
5.3.4 Kerbside Collection 73
5.3.5 Markets 74
5.3.6 Types of Composting 75
5.3.7 What do we propose to do? 76
5.4 Residual Waste Management 77
5.4.1 What are our options? 78
5.4.2 What are we proposing to do? 84
5.5 Other Household Wastes 84
5.5.1 What are our options and what can we do? 85
5.6 Other municipal waste 87
5.6.1 What are our options and what can we do? 87
MAKING IT HAPPEN 91
6 WASTE AWARENESS 91
6.1 National campaigns 91
6.1.1 Eco-Schools 93
6.2 Local campaigns 94
6.2.1 Education Officers 94
6.2.2 Recycle with Michael! 95
6.2.3 Enforcement 95
6.3 Action Plan 95
7 Infrastructure 97
7.1 Need for new facilities 97
7.1.1 Welsh Assembly Government 97
7.2 Planned provision of new facilities 98
7.2.1 Neighbourhood Recycling Centres 97
7.2.2 Household Recycling Centres 98
7.2.3 Waste treatment and disposal 99
7.3 Regulation and waste facilities 99
7.4 Relationship with the Unitary Development Plan 99
7.5 Transportation of waste 100
8 Wales Programme for Improvement (Best Value) 102
8.1 Best Value Performance Targets 102
9 Resources 104
9.1 Capital 104
9.2 Running Costs 104
9.3 Council Staff Time 106
9.4 Who will pay for it? 106
9.4.1 Welsh Assembly Government 106
9.4.2 Council Tax 106
9.4.3 Direct charging for waste collection 107
10 Recycling Plan 108
10.1 Recycling Strategy 108
10.1.1 Review 109
10.1.2 Essential Legal Requirements 109
11 Litter Plan 112
11.1 Appraisal 112
11.2 Operations 114
11.3 Education 115
12 Conclusion 116
SUPPORTING INFORMATION 117
13 REFERENCES 117
13.1 European Legislation 117
13.1.1 Directives referred to in Appendix D 117
13.2 UK Legislation 117
13.3 Welsh Assembly Government Documents 118
13.4 General 118
13.5 Bibliography 118
14 CONTACTS 120
14.1 Welsh Assembly Government 120
14.2 UK Government 120
14.3 Government Agencies 120
14.4 Charities, Community Groups and Organisations 120
15 Abbreviations 123
15.1 Glossary 124
appendices 135
APPENDIX A: Current Situation: Wrexham Statistics.
APPENDIX B: Independent Litter Survey
APPENDIX C: Options Appraisal – Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities
summary
What is municipal waste?
Waste is rubbish – everything we throw away – but we think of the rubbish we throw away it as a waste of resources. Municipal waste is the waste collected by or on behalf of the Authority-Wrexham County Borough Council. Municipal waste is the rubbish that anthe Authoritycouncil is responsible for managing including, household bins; street sweepings and litter; some commercial and trade waste; parks and gardens waste; schools waste; fly tipping; and abandoned cars.
We produced over 83 THOUSAND tonnes of waste in the Borough last during the Financial Year 2002/2003, year, that’s over tonne and a half per household in just one year. Currently, the amount we are producing increases by around 3% a year; that means by 2050 we’ll have double the amount of waste we do today!
Why do we need a waste strategy?
Around 90% of the waste we produce is disposed of in a hole in the ground; this is no longer considered to be a viable waste management option. The way we manage our waste therefore needs to change; there are a number of reasons for this.
l We need to become more sustainable. Sustainability is about meeting our needs without preventing future generations from meeting theirs. Dumping waste in the ground is not sustainable because we are running out of suitable sites for landfills and we are wasting valuable resources, which could be reprocessed.
l The amount of waste we throw away is growing. Nationally, the waste we produce is growing by about 3% a year. This rate of growth cannot continue due to the economic and environmental costs associated with its management.
l Environmental and economic costs of landfill. The cost of landfilling waste is set to rise steeply in the next 10 years; this is due in part, to the environmental Llandfill Ttax imposed by the government. Landfills pose a threat to the environment through the release of liquids (leachate) and gases, mostly methane produced as our waste rots.
l New and pending legislation. European and national legislation is changing to make us manage waste more sustainably. A One major piece of legislation is , the Llandfill Ddirective, implemented in 2002 it will is already have ing a major affect on the way we manage our waste.
l Planning policy. National, Regional and Local planning policy is now aimed at more sustainable waste management. Policies have been derived at all levels which ask us to consider and analyse a number of factors when we plan how to manage our waste,
o the Best Practicable Environmental Option;
o Sustainable Waste Management Options;
o Life Cycle Assessment;
o the Proximity Principle;
o Health Impacts;
o The Waste Hierarchy.
l Attainment of Government targets. In order to comply with legislation and make waste management more sustainable, the Welsh Assembly Government has set a number of challenging targets to be met by local authorities. Since the summer of In the last year (2002), Wrexham has made significant inroads towards attaining these targets, however, there is still need for improvement as illustrated below.
Tonnes of our waste to be recycled or composted in order to meet Government targets.
Given all of the above, we need to REDUCE the amount of waste we produce; REUSE waste whenever we can; RECYCLE or COMPOST as much waste as possible; and RECOVER as much value as we can from the waste that i’s left over before finally disposing of it. The purpose of this Strategy is to examine how best to achieve this.
In order to find successful waste management solutions to the issues associated with its priority components of municipal waste management, the CouncilAuthority has identified a number of key objectives:
- To adhere to the principles of the Wwaste Hhierarchy and sustainable waste management, and to use the Proximity Principle and Best Practical Environmental Option (BPEO) when planning new systems and facilities for handling waste.
- To comply with current and pending waste management and environmental legislation, and to strive to meet all national and local targets.
- To continue to offer the best customer service possible and to continue to improve and deliver Best Value to the residents of Wrexham County Borough.
- To offer enhanced opportunities for its residents to participate in sustainable waste management.
How can we achieve our objectives?
The question remains as to how, using the resources available, we can best achieve more sustainable waste management in Wrexham County Borough.
There is no one solution to the problem of waste management. Every area has unique attributes, both current and historic, and so each area has to consider a series of waste management options that are best suited to the needs and aspirations of that area.a sole solution. This document examines the options available to us, exploring
l ways of encouraging the public to rethink the way they manage their rubbish;
l different ways of collecting waste in order to increase the amount of waste we recycle and compost;
l Alternative ways of treating and disposing of our wastes.
These options are considered in terms of environmental effects, practicality, customer preference and costs, as well as in terms of Rregional and Nnational Ggovernment Ppolicy.
What have we done so far and what are we going to do?
We have already started working on improving the way we manage our waste in Wrexham. ;The W our waste Pplan produced in 1996, Waste Management Plan 1996/2000, set the foundation. for this. Recent vVital funding from the Welsh Assembly Government’s Sustainable Waste Management Fund has allowed us to make considerable progress. The Recycle with Michael project commenced in July 2002. in the last year
l We have employed two Recycling and Education Officers to promote waste reduction and recycling and composting in the County Borough.
l We have been offering home composting units at cost price and to date, have sold some 2,500 bins (to Winter 2004).
l We have carried out a very successful trial of 6,000 households collecting recyclables and green waste directly from householders. This maximises convenience to householders thereby encouraging participation in more sustainable waste management.
l We have initiated a scheme to install 30 Neighbourhood Recycling Centres across the district. These are designed to complement the kerbside scheme and provide facilities for recycling glass and other bulky materials close to residences.
l We have begun a programme to improve our Household Recycling Centres (Civic Amenity Sites), offering more opportunities to separate waste for recycling.
These measures have helped us nearly double our recycling/composting rate, we must still do better than this in order to achieve the targets set by the Welsh Assembly Government and in order to comply with European legislation. To this end the CouncilAuthority intends to:
l Continue to actively promote waste reduction, including maintaining sales of home composting units at cost price.
l Roll out our kerbside recycling / composting scheme to serve 7550% of the County Borough by the end of the Financial Year 2005within 5 years.
l Continue to improve the convenience of bring recycling and composting to householders through provision of additional Neighbourhood Recycling Centres and continue to upgrade two additional Household Wwaste Centress.
l Household Wwaste Ssites will be designed to maximise recycling; this will include provision for separate collection , and recycling where possible, of hazardous household wastes such as paint, oils, fluorescent tubes and batteries.
l The CouncilAuthority is currently in negotiations with a private sector contractor who is looking to provide an integrated waste management facility in the County Boroughborough. We believehope that this will give us a more sustainable option for the management of wastes, which are left over after recycling and composting, have been optimised.
What can you do?
REDUCE
✔ Compost your kitchen and garden waste at home
✔ Register with the Mailing Preference Service and reduce junk mail
✔ Buy products with less packaging
✔ Buy only the amount you need
✔ Choose reusable rather than disposable goods
REUSE
✔ Repair broken goods instead of throwing them away
✔ Give unwanted goods to charity shops or jumble sales.
✔ Donate unwanted furniture and white goods to local community groups
RECYCLE
✔ Participate in recycling schemes in your area
✔ Close the loop! Buy goods that are recycled and recyclable
✔ Challenge yourself to recycle more each week
✔ Encourage your family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues to participate in recycling.
Before disposal!
CURRENT SITUATION
Wrexham
Wrexham County Borough is situated in the north east region of Wales, bounded by the Clwydian Hills to the west and the undulating Shropshire countryside to the south. It covers an area of 50,500 hectares and has a population of nearly 129,300 2002 mid-year estimates128,500 (2001 Census).
1.1 Geography
Wrexham Town Centre is the hub of the County Borough; to the north and west of the town the land rises to the tail end of the Clwydian Hills, Esclusham Mountain and Ruabon Mountain. The land to the south and east drops away and forms part of the Dee Plain. The steep sided valley running east west from Chirk to Glyn Ceiriog, lies in the south of the County Borough.
The area has several designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which exist to protect special and exceptional flora, fauna, geological and physical features.
The River Dee forms a natural boundary to the south and east of the County Borough. Several minor rivers flow through the area, which are tributaries of the River Dee, namely the Rivers Alyn, Ceiriog, Clywedog and Gwenfro. A spur of the Shropshire Union Canal crosses the southern part of the County Borough.
Neighbouring Counties are Cheshire to the north and east; Denbighshire to the west; Flintshire to the north and west; Powys to the southwest and Shropshire to the southeast.
1.2 Industry and Economy
The area has had a tradition of heavy industry, which finally ceased with the closure of Bersham Colliery in 1986 and Brymbo Steel Works in 1991.
The CouncilAuthority, in collaboration with the Welsh Development Agency and similar organisations, has been instrumental in attracting industry to the area since the late “Ssixties”. Several custom built modern industrial estates provide the location for major international manufacturers. Manufacturing sectors include metallurgy, engineering, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electronics, optical engineering, plastics and packaging, textiles and food processing. There is a miscellany of minor industries supplying the larger companies.