All to play for in the UK’s state shuffle at the top
Small incinerator plant 'is UK first'; Council ploughs £3m into recycling strategy; J&B invests in safety alert system; CSG scores well for waste recovery
Organic waste and energy-from-waste (EfW) firm Tidy Planet has sold a new plant to Brooke Energy in Exeter.
The small waste incineration plant replaces a redundant biomass facility and will process three tonnes per hour of refuse derived fuel from local waste collectors.
Tidy Planet said this was the first full-size RDF EfW system in the UK that uses industrial boiler manufacturer Sugimat’s new solid waste-fuelled Horizon+ thermal oil boiler technology to produce thermal power for Turboden’s Organic Rankine Cycle electricity-generation equipment.
Kirklees Council has approved nearly £3m of investment in initiatives, facilities and technology for the next phase of its waste and recycling strategy up to 2025.
The planned expansion of reuse facilities at two household waste and recycling centres could see trial Reuse shops open after a trial period saw more than 70 tonnes of materials donated.
Kirklees also plans to improve litter bin facilities including on-street recycling and to try out ‘big-belly’ and auto-sorting bins and restore kerbside glass collections.
J&B Recycling has invested more than £40,000 to enhance safety at its sites across the north east with the installation of SiteZone, a proximity warning system for preventing pedestrian collisions with plant.
SiteZone produces a detection zone around a vehicle, machine, or restricted area, which when breached by someone wearing a SiteZone tag alerts those working nearby to the incident.
The company said being struck by a moving vehicle was the second most common cause of fatal injuries at work, with 23 such incident nationally in 2021-22.
Health and safety manager Michael Robinson said: “Whilst we already have lots of measures in place for safety and traffic management across our sites, SiteZone provides the next level of protection.”
Waste management firm CSG has scored a best-ever 87% waste recovery record according to its first environmental sustainability report.
Antony Gerken, permitting and compliance manager, said: “To deliver 87% waste recovery is a fantastic achievement, particularly considering the vast array of materials and substances our processing plants deal with.”
He said the Blackburn had seen 100% recovery but achieving this at other sites would be problematic with, for example, the Cadishead site dealing with waste that may have already been through an extensive recovery process.
CSG specialises in waste haulage, waste treatment and recovery, industrial cleaning and wastewater engineering.
Recycling Lives has taken delivery of what it says is the UK’s first 100% electric skip transporter trucks.
The two 19-tonne E-Tech DZE trucks were designed and developed with Renault Trucks and their arrival marked the start of the decarbonisation of the company’s entire fleet.
It said the all-electric vehicles can complete a full day’s work on a single charge with zero tailpipe emissions and low traffic noise.
Each is powered by a 265kWh battery, and equipped with a 22kW on board AC charger compatible with DC fast charging up to 150kW.
The Circular Economy for Flexible Packaging (CEFLEX) initiative has added flexible packaging containing aluminium foil to its design guidelines remit.
A working group including representatives of the full value chain for flexible packaging containing aluminium foil began work in spring 2022, and final results are due next summer.
CEFLEX coordinator Graham Houlder said: “Key questions on the sortability and recyclability of flexible packaging containing aluminium foil will be included in the CEFLEX design testing programme and enrich the design guidelines. This includes fully understanding technical capabilities of eddy current separation, the aluminium recycling pyrolysis pathway and advanced separation technologies, which have already been highlighted for specific attention.”
Fly-tipper Vitor Da Silva, of Barton Road, Torquay, has been fined £100 and ordered to pay £80 costs after he failed to clear illegally dumped waste near Newton Abbot, including vehicles, furniture, white goods and gas bottles.
The Environment Agency said he pleaded guilty to dumping waste without an environmental permit.
Da Silva had been earlier given a conditional discharge, which was breached when he failed to clear the site by the end of May 2022.
Teesside waste firm Scott Bros is providing free services to an autism charity that appealed for help following a costly break-in.
Daisy Chain's Charity Superstore saw thieves cause £10,000 worth of structural damage to its building. Following an online appeal, Scott Bros decided to provide a free skip service to assist staff and volunteers clean up It has also sent an additional skip to Daisy Chain's main site in Norton,
Director David Scott said: "This is a Teesside charity which offers fantastic support for autistic people in this area. When I heard about this mindless attack, I wanted to offer our support and hope other businesses in the area will do whatever they can.”
Guernsey is looking to appoint a contractor to process the island’s food waste when the current contract expires at the end of 2023.
More than 4,500 tonnes of separated food waste is collected every year and sent to an anaerobic digestion facility in England.
Guernsey Waste, which is owned by the island’s government has invited bidders to complete pre-qualification questionnaire.
Operations manager Sarah Robinson said treatment options other than anaerobic digestion would be considered, provided they can demonstrate environmental benefits and value for money.
Whatever process is used, the operator will be responsible for ensuring they had adequate outlets for any bi-products and residues.
A contract is expected to be awarded in early 2023, with an anticipated start date of January 2024.
South Hams District Council may end its free garden waste collection service from 31 October and start charging £49 per year.
It blamed rising costs and continued driver shortages as it takes the service back in-house next month. South Hams in July ended its contract with FCC “by mutual agreement”.
The council said ceasing the free service would also ease pressure on the core waste and recycling collections, helping to keep these stable in the early months of the transition.
Keith Baldry, executive member for the environment, said: "When the council decided to bring the waste service back in-house, that comes with the reality of increased costs. With such high inflation, we've been left with no choice but to consider every way we can to balance the budget.”
Four European consumer associations: Test-Achats, Belgium; Associazione di Consumatori Italiana, Italy; Associação Portuguesa para a Defesa do Consumidor, Portugal; Organización de Consumidores y Usuarios, Spain have conducted a study on supermarket shopping containers to analyse their environmental impacts.
The study has recommended that consumers, manufacturers and retailers should “communicate only true information” about bags.
It concluded it was useless to communicate that a container is “sustainable”, “green” or “ecological” if it has more environmental impacts than other solutions.
Manufactures should give preference to suppliers s located in Europe over those in Asia because of the carbon used in transporting goods long distances, it said.
Retailers were urged to offer options and not oblige consumers to always buy a reusable bag, as “if the consumer constantly forgets the reusable bag at home, the environmental impacts are far greater than if the consumer were to buy only single use bags”.
Dron & Dickson, which installs harsh and hazardous area electrical equipment, has appointed Envirovue to assist with reducing the emissions from its waste management as part of its commitment to be net aero by 2030.
Envirovue will identify compliant carriers and waste facilities for each of Dron & Dickson’s five branches and undertake site audits to identify additional recycling opportunities.
The first phase will also include installing electric vehicle charging stations at each branch and transitioning to hybrid or electric cars and renewable energy utility suppliers.
A man who died after being electrocuted by an overhead power cable while working for a waste firm suffered burns to 37% of his body, an inquest has heard.
Steven Hill was working for waste firm TK Lynskey when he was electrocuted in Wath upon Dearne in August 2020. He died three days later from his injuries.
An inquest has heard that Hill was using heavy machinery to move waste on a large pile of aggregate underneath a 66,000-volt overhead power line.
DC Rob Webster from South Yorkshire Police said members of the company's management were interviewed under caution in relation to corporate manslaughter and potential breaches of health and safety legislation but the threshold to pursue any criminal charges had not been met. The inquest continues.
Aberdeenshire’s Recycl8 has appointed Mark Gillespie as chief executive. Recycl8 founder Ian Skene, will move into the role of chief technology officer and the pair will work on bringing its low carbon concrete to the market.
Recycl8 said it works with the energy-from-waste and construction industries to transform incinerator bottom ash into concrete instead of the material being sent to landfill.
The company is exploring potential bases in central Scotland to position itself closer to EfW plants and concrete manufacturers.
Bakers Basco - which provides reusable plastic baskets to the baking industry - has found 93% of the delivery drivers who transport bread feel a responsibility for the safe return of equipment.
Millions of bread baskets go missing every year, and 44% of drivers surveyed said they had seen equipment belonging to Bakers Basco in unauthorised places, including car boot sales and garden centres.
General manager Paul Empson said: “We will use these findings to help improve how we engage with delivery drivers on the ground as we work towards greater collaboration across the industry to stamp out any unlawful activity relating to delayed, lost or stolen equipment.”
O'Donovan Waste Disposal has switched its 100-strong fleet of HGVs to run on hydrotreated vegetable oil.
It said the oil was a 100% renewable fuel that eliminated up to 90% of net carbon dioxide emissions.
The oil also reduced nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 30%, particulate matter by up to 86% and carbon monoxide by up to 90%.
Managing director Jacqueline O’Donovan said: “This bold move has a huge positive effect in terms of our environmental impact. We are clearly demonstrating that we are in line with our clients’ needs and requirements to adopt more sustainable processes and services, as well as the worldwide need to act now to prevent further global warming.”
TrueCircle has launched TrueCircle Trade, an online platform for recyclables trading, which it said would streamline the end-to-end trading process by offering computer vision quality data, real time auction functionality, automated documentation checks as well as embedded financing and transportation.
Chief executive Rishi Stocker said: “Recycling facilities across Europe have for decades been held back by offline and manual trading processes, which have led to foregone revenue and excessively high admin costs.”
He said lack of trust in material quality “has always stood in the way of new trading relationships” but the platform’s functions would help to overcome this.
TrueCircle Trade said it already had 150 verified buyers and sellers, with an annual purchasing capacity of 7.9m tonnes.
A married couple used fake Facebook profiles to advertise waste collections before fly-tipping rubbish on a publicly-owned travellers’ site in Herefordshire, and then tried to burn the evidence.
Officers discovered that Jamie and Lisa Turley, of Openfields, Bromyard, had left evidence, which led them back to customers who had paid the Turleys to take away waste, following arrangements made on Facebook.
At Herefordshire Magistrates Jamie Turley pleaded guilty to three charges of fly tipping, two of failing to obtain waste transfer notes, disposing of waste in a manner likely to cause pollution to the environment and harm to human health and one count of obstructing an investigation.
He received a six month prison sentence and was ordered to pay £156 victim surcharge. Lisa Turley was given an 18-month community order and ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £685.
Consultancy Ceresanahas issued a market study that has found plastic carrier bags are increasingly being replaced by paper bags as the European Union’s ‘green deal’ takes effect.
It said new regulations on bio-based, biodegradable and compostable plastics, such as mandatory labelling, before the end of 2022 “should put an end to the widespread confusion among consumers and ensure that bioplastics lead to genuine environmental benefits”.
Glass recycling firm Recresco has invested £5.5m in metal sorting technology at its Ellesmere Port site, of which £2m comes from European Union grant funding awarded in 2019.
It said shredders, x-ray fluorescence technology and briquetting machinery would become operational this month to sort, shred and compress aluminium bottle tops from commingled glass collections for smelting.
Recresco said some 20 tonnes of metal lids move through its plant every week, but its Redwave machinery would remove these and press metals for smelting.
Director Tim Gent, said, “At Recresco we feel strongly about reducing waste and achieving the most positive environmental outcomes for glass. By taking the same approach to the by-products of glass recycling, we can efficiently drive more waste product into sustainable end use.”
European Plastics Converters (EuPC) has become one of 17 partners in the Plastics Recycling from and for Home Appliances, Toys and Textile (PRecycling) initiative, funded by the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
It said the objective of this would be to produce high-quality recyclates from plastic waste streams by developing a methodology for sorting, sampling, tracing, recycling techniques.
PRecycling also seeks to develop technologies and methods to promote the circularity of plastics, aiming to overcome obstacles by designing materials from recyclable plastic resources, ensuring their quality and safe use and verifying the recyclate content.
Cosmetics brand L’Oréal has joined Nextloopp’s 47-strong project to create food-grade PPristine and INRT-grade recycled polypropylene from post-consumer packaging waste.
Nextloopp was launched by Nextek in October 2020 and recently began production trials of food-grade compliant rPP.
Delphine Trillat, materials science domain leader at L’Oréal, said: “We have been working for many years to develop packaging made from high quality post-consumer recycled polymers. We are pleased to join the Nextloopp project team in order to join efforts and boost the circular pathway for food-grade rPP packaging, with such a promising technology for the years to come."
Lubricating oil recycler Slicker Recycling has expanded its interceptor team to 18 staff, who offer cleaning and maintenance of interceptors and surrounding drainage.
Commercial manager Leanne Tillson will lead the team’s sales and administrative functions, while Lennie Hamilton has become operations manager. Noemi Kedves is promoted to interceptor planner and Nicola Stocks to interceptor customer advisor. Emily Knight joins in sales administration.
Veolia has launched Agribe, which uses waste from the paper industry as a bedding material for chickens and turkeys. It said that converting this unused by-product the new material would boost the circular economy in farming and had the potential to deliver cost savings.
The production process takes the discarded fibre from the pulping processes in paper and cardboard mills, and converts this into a kiln-dried paper crumb bedding. After use the product has potential bio-energy applications.
FCC Environment’s internal recruitment for qualified LGV drivers has seen eight people retrained in its first year on its Central Bedfordshire contract.
The company said the course involved theoretical revision followed by practical training during which candidates drive lorries prior to the test.
Contract manager Jason Canepe said: “We embarked on this process during the peak of LGV driver crises and I think investing in our own people and providing them with these career opportunities is key to combating these challenges.”
FCC said the combination of Brexit and the pandemic has led to changes in immigration regulation and a backlog in training and testing drivers.
Berry Global’s CleanStream recycling technology - a closed-loop system to mechanically process domestically recovered household waste polypropylene back into food-grade packaging - has gained a’letter of no objection’ from the US Food & Drug Administration.
This confirms it can be used in levels up to 100% recycled content for food contact applications.
Mark Roberts, circular value chain director, Berry Global Consumer Packaging International, said: “The target markets for this material are all contact sensitive applications, in particular cosmetics and personal care as well as food contact.
“Following [this] we will now be pursuing EU approvals for the material for food packaging applications.”
Reconomy Group has achieved the ISO 140064 accreditation for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.
All Reconomy Group businesses used auditor Achilles’ ‘carbon reduce’ software to record and report direct and indirect energy use. This inventory was then verified by qualified independent auditors in accordance with the international ISO standard.
Reduction targets will now be set for to include the group’s most recent acquisitions, the company said.
Recycling company Re-Gen has started work on its £30m circular economy resource park on an eight-acre site in the Invest NI Carnbane Business Park in Newry.
This will accommodate the manufacture of solid recovered fuel and products from dry recyclables. An engineering and research and development unit will be in a four-storey office block that will be a new headquarters for the Re-Gen Group.
Managing director Joseph Doherty said, “Employing special mechanical manufacturing processes, we will be producing SRF as a fossil fuel replacement on the site. We are progressing R&D trials and we will also develop products from dry recyclable material such as paper, plastic and glass on the site.”
Technology Minerals has said its 49%-owned Recyclus Group battery recycling business, has received approved battery treatment operator (ABTO) status from the Environmental Agency for site in Tipton,
Recyclus is now authorised to produce up to 15,000 tonnes a year of lead and store up to 300 tonnes of inbound stock at any one time.
The company said it would move to a fully automated recycling process later this year following receipt of the variation of licence.
Robin Brundle, chairman of Technology Minerals, said: “The lead-acid battery recycling industry is currently a major polluter, with over 18,000 tonnes of spent batteries incinerated or sent to landfill each year in the UK alone. It is vital that companies look to strip back ‘greenwashing’ and promote homegrown waste management solutions if the UK is to achieve its COP26 net zero targets.”
Solway Recycling, based at Shawhead, near Dumfries, suffered significant damage in a blaze in May 2020 but has said it has since rebuilt its business including a £3m project to install a modern product manufacturing facility and replace workshops and office units.
The company was set up by farmer Roy Hiddleston in 1992 to re-process farm plastics and operates a national farmers recycling service.
He said: “After the fire, we were determined to come back as soon as possible. Two years on, thanks to the dedication and hard work of all our team, we are charging on with our product manufacturing facility.”
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service has tackled a large blaze at a Scunthorpe waste site for the second time in three weeks.
Crews were called to the Northern Waste site and people living nearby told to keep windows closed.
Around 20 firefighters, tackled the blaze that involved “a large amount of waste", a fire spokeswoman said. Nobody was injured and no buildings damaged, she added.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service has extinguished a blaze at a recycling centre in Perth and nearby roads have reopened.
Group commander Mike Youngson said: "This was a significant incident at its height with six appliances and crews on site to tackle the blaze.
Enva and Frank Key have launched a three-year strategic partnership that will see the builders merchant and plant and tool hire firm outsource its skip hire and waste management services to Enva.
Under this, Enva will serve Frank Key customers across its 17 branches in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, enabling both organisations to explore commercial opportunities such as recycled aggregates and hazardous waste services.
Enva’s head of sales, Kirsty Woodward said: “We will also be working closely with the team at Frank Key to leverage the opportunities presented by a closely aligned range of services and sustainable products.”
WRAP has opened an Asia-Pacific office in Adelaide in partnership with Fight Food Waste Australia, its first office outside the UK.
It said this would enable WRAP to expand its activities in the region and act as a base for work across China, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand.
Chief executive Marcus Gover said: “The opening of our new office in Australia is not just a new premises for WRAP, it is the first step in our strategy to extend our reach and increase our impact in the region. We are immensely proud of our presence in Australia and our aim is to bring people together and drive change across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the pacific.”
The food waste produced by UK households each year would cover the entire surface area of the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg at some 3,883 square kilometres, research for recipe box delivery company, HelloFresh has found.
It said the average UK household threw away enough food to feed five extra adults every week.
HelloFresh recipe box subscriptions supply pre-measured ingredients for weekly meals, the company said, meaning customers have little food waste and are able to live more sustainably.
A Herefordshire man has been sent to Worcester Crown Court for sentencing after failing to properly dispose of hazardous substances.
Jesse Isaac Biddle entered guilty pleas to six charges at Hereford magistrates’ court, who heard he had treated commercial waste in a manner likely to cause pollution or harm to human health in Bromyard.
He also transported commercial waste while not a registered carrier of controlled waste.
Environmental Services Association warns regulator needs to be better funded to support businesses
Trade association reaction to price cap for electricity at £211/MWh for six months
Unions to ballot on pay at Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon councils
Isles of Scilly looks for waste haulage services, Cumbria wants confidential specialists and Veolia wins in Walsall
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