|
ESA Pages
Week Ending: 26 June 2009
Great start for UK’s new lead sustainability event
Despite the underground strike in London, the joint ESA-CIWM Futuresource event held at the ExCel centre in London saw 30% more visitors than the previous CIWM Show in Torbay last year.
“The success of Futuresource and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from exhibitors wholly vindicates ESA’s longstanding determination that the UK should have a sectoral trade show at the right venue in London, capable of holding its own against other events in France and Germany,” commented Dirk Hazell, ESA’s Chief Executive.
“ESA was offered guaranteed payment for a number of other partnerships in 2008, but after careful consideration our Board believed that the best result could be secured through partnership with CIWM and we have since delivered a greatly improved conference and trade show with thousands of visitors and top level speakers as well as the partnership with letsrecycle.com.”
He continued: “ESA’s ongoing support will ensure unprecedented operator presence and an even better show from 15 to 17 June 2010: indeed, while other sectors have had to cancel their trade show, a third of this year’s participants have already signed-up for Futuresource 2010.
“I strongly encourage any Members of ESA who have some suggestions for making the 2010 show even more of a success to let us have their ideas as soon as possible,” concluded Mr Hazell.
ESA discusses landfill tax with HMRC
ESA recently met representatives of HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to discuss the Government’s proposals to modernise landfill tax. The consultation focuses on two principal areas: clarification of the definition of a taxable disposal at a landfill site, and aligning the landfill tax definition of ‘inactive’ waste with the ‘inert’ waste definition contained in the revised Waste Framework Directive.
HMRC proposes to create greater legal certainty regarding taxable disposal at a landfill and hopes that a new definition more closely related to a site’s permit will substantially reduce or eliminate the need for future litigation. ESA’s Members have generally indicated that this part of the proposal is relatively uncontroversial.
However, the proposal to align the landfill tax definition of ‘inactive’ waste with the definition of ‘inert’ waste in the revised Waste Framework Directive is more contentious. This proposal could lead to a range of materials, including Incinerator Bottom Ash and gypsum, becoming subject to the higher rate of tax.
ESA Chief Executive, Dirk Hazell, noted this proposal’s potential to penalise energy from waste technologies which form an essential component of meeting key UK policy objectives such as landfill diversion, renewable energy targets, and improving the security of UK energy supplies.
ESA also noted that the proposals could lead to more waste materials being managed through exemptions outside the full permitted framework and that this could lead to lower standards of environmental management.
HMRC was keen to stress that the landfill tax retained its environmental purpose and environmental grounds were the only basis on which the Government was likely to be willing to consider exceptions to proposals to align definitions of ‘inactive’ and ‘inert’ waste.
The consultation on the proposals closes on Friday 24 July. ESA will submitt a written response. For further information please contact Jacob Hayler, J-Hayler@esauk.org.
ESA’s Board meets WRAP
ESA’s Chairman, Malcolm Ward, and other members of ESA’s Board held a meeting with the senior executive team of the Waste & Resources Action Programme and WRAP Non-Executive Director, the Baroness Jones of Whitchurch.
WRAP emphasised that its recent work on collections was intended to inform future decisions rather than to undermine existing achievements and it was agreed that further research might usefully be undertaken to expand the evidential base on relative costs and other matters.
Discussion also covered ESA’s perception that the outgoing waste minister, Jane Kennedy MP, had focussed excessively on Anaerobic Digestion, at the expense of more pressing and potentially more significant areas where progress was needed.
Another area of discussion was the end of waste provisions in the Waste Framework Directive which are intended to strengthen recycling markets by specifying, across the EU, when specific recyclates become products and stop being waste. ESA reaffirmed its support for WRAP’s work on the thirteen protocols but noted that this work needed to be aligned to the European Commission’s own priorities which did not, for example, include immediate legal certainty across the EU for end of waste for compost.
Scottish Parliament debates waste strategy
The Scottish Parliament has debated the Scottish Government’s proposed National Waste Management Plan. Due to be issued for consultation in July and published in February 2010, the Plan aims to deliver Scotland’s zero waste objectives and a 70% recycling rate by 2025.
Scottish Ministers asserted early success in the Scottish Government’s zero waste policy, with data suggesting that growth in Scotland’s municipal waste arisings had stabilised and that Scotland’s share of the 2010 landfill diversion target had been achieved 18 months early.
During the debate, there was some demand from MSPs for greater clarity on the methodology used to derive the 25% cap on energy from waste and a suggestion that, in seeking to impose a blanket cap, the Scottish Government had failed to account for the positive environmental benefits that could be derived from waste recovery technologies.
MSPs further noted that cuts to local authority funding and abolition of the Strategic Waste Fund would pose severe challenges for Scotland’s compliance with the 2013 landfill diversion target.
John Scott MSP noted that a lack of waste management infrastructure posed an immediate barrier to achieving the Scottish Government’s zero waste objectives. In citing Dirk Hazell’s oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Environment Committee on behalf of SESA, he noted that there was insufficient infrastructure to meet existing EU obligations and that more infrastructure was required to accelerate Scotland’s transition from a disposal to a recycling society.
Scottish Climate Change Bill
The Scottish Parliament will debate the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill. The Bill contains a number of waste management provisions including proposals to prepare waste management plans, collate more accurate waste data, targets to reduce packaging waste and green public procurement.
In oral evidence to the Scottish Parliament, Dirk Hazell on behalf of SESA urged MSPs to require much greater clarity in the primary legislation rather than rely on the exceptionally wide powers proposed for Scottish Ministers which included imposition of criminal offences on types of people unidentified in the Bill.
Observations submitted on significant development
ESA has responded to a consultation on the proposed procedures for submitting applications for nationally significant development to the newly established Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC).
ESA noted, for example, that the shift in responsibilities from duties currently carried out by planning authorities to the developer would inevitably place additional financial burdens on applicants, and called for this to be reflected in reduced application fees to be levied by the IPC.
|
