Waste minimisation may get legal teeth
Saturday 16th October 2010, 2:29PM BST.
NEW laws could be introduced to help reduce the island’s waste.
The idea is under consideration as part of waste minimisation plans being drawn up by the Public Services Department.
The proposal could form a key part of the future strategy for dealing with Guernsey’s rubbish.
Deputy Public Services minister Scott Ogier (pictured) said his department was also looking at other schemes being operated elsewhere which might be suitable for introduction here.
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Have a look at Horsham, they are currently installing two green waste handling units at the waste management site near Southwater in West Sussex.
Both are green and DO NOT use an incinerator.
http://www.organics-recycling.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=801:biffa-signs-25-year-waste-treatment-deal-with-west-sussex-county-council-&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=18
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Has nobody yet worked out that the upper echelons of our government are ostriches?
Bury it!
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Before adding yet more laws to the statute book how about bringing back (and extending) the kerbside recycling scheme?
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If the Waste Hierarchy is at the ‘centre’ of PSD’s waste management, as they keep telling us it is, then ‘Reduction’ is right up there at the top and should therefore be getting the priority it deserves.
Making it easy for everyone to recycle with kerbside collections as suggested by Paul Le P. would help to ‘reduce’ our residual pile….. so I think that it is obvious that we should be doing that.
If we are not doing everything we can to ‘reduce’ the waste that is being generated, then we are not following the Waste Hierarchy, whatever the Deputies tell you.
As well as making it easier for us all, there might still need to be some legislation for some aspects of a strategy……. for instance, bringing in island wide Pay As You Throw.
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Paul Le Page,
I’m not sure how kerbside recycling could work without some legal teeth to require people to separate domestic rubbish, or to charge for unsorted waste.
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Chris raises a good point about the potential problems with kerbside but I think Rosie has hit on the best answer for Guernsey with ‘Pay As You Throw’.
Okay, I do live on my own and I do recycle lots so my weekly waste fits into a plastic shopping bag rather than a black sack but some of my neighbours leave bags full of stuff and when one splits accidentally you can see they’ve left tins, bottles, drinks cans, plastic drinks bottles, the lot. Why shouldn’t they pay much more for the privilege of filling our landfill site about 50 times quicker than I do?
I’m sure they do PAYT in other countries so simply charge per black sack (each sack would have to have an ID sticker to identify it or it doesn’t get collected). That way we’d see a lot more people take up recycling because it would pay them to recycle, whereas now it does not. Let’s hit the lazy, selfish, antisocial and irresponsible ones where it hurts – in the pocket!
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ChrisJ – I concede that point.
I think it would work to a degree if the facility was there and voluntary however as you say, unless legislated for I doubt it would ever work optimally.
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Paul,
The States have already dismissed a publicly-operated kerbside scheme, predominantly on grounds of cost. I think such grounds are flawed though because they only consider the costs to the taxpayer, and ignore the costs already being borne by people using bring banks. Those costs are hard to quantify, but I do note that some people are prepared to pay monthly fees to private companies to do the job for them.
On the other hand, I can’t see why the States necessarily has to provide kerbside collection when private operators are already doing it. Why not just legislate for compulsary separation of dry recyclables from domestic waste and/or pay as you throw, and leave individuals to decide whether they use the bring banks, privately-run kerbside collection, or perhaps get together to save costs by operating their own community schemes?
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Daily Mail 18/10/10 carries an article about a woman in Shropshire who has by law been issued with nine waste receptacles by her local council
1 Grey wheelie bin for household waste
2 Green wheelie bin for garden waste
3 Black box for mixed glass/tins/aerosols/tin foil
4 Blue bag for cardboard
5 Blue box for paper & magazines
6 A kitchen slop bucket to empty into the green wheelie bin
7 Orange draw string bag for plastic bottles
8 Clear polythene bag No 1 for old batteries
9 Clear polythene bag No 2 for light bulbs
The above also comes with a warning that the bin police are able to hand out £100 on the spot fines for an over filled wheelie,extra rubbish placed out or bins put out at the wrong time
Wrong items in the wrong receptacle will lead to the bins not being collected that week / fortnight
How would flat dwellers in Pedvin Street or Victoria Road etc find the room for that lot?
Surely Guernsey can find a better way
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Ray, although of course I make a point of positively disbelieving absolutely everything in the Daily Mail, I do see what you are getting at: if you involve the public sector directly in providing kerbside collection, it carries a risk you can end up generating a big set of ‘one size fits all’ petty rules which are fine for some people but totally impractical for others.
So why not keep the legislation in this area to a minimum (e.g. no dry recyclables in household refuse), retain the bring banks, and leave individuals, neighbourhood co-ops and the private sector to find the best solutions for how we separate our waste?
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Services costs money. People forget that, if you applied UK council tax to most local properties, then most of us would be paying £1400. To make comparisons with the UK without accepting that fact is moot.
We appear to want recycling but God help the States if they raise the parish rates, we want mental health facilities but the 20% tax rate is sacred.
Not only does this Island want its cake, it wants to eat and then run out of the restaurant without paying.
…………….
“How would flat dwellers in Pedvin Street or Victoria Road etc find the room for that lot?”
Ray, you might be falling into the find a way to say no trap. If the majority of the island could be served by recycling services then it would be reasonably simple to recognise the difficulties in some areas of SPP and make them exempt. A few streets in SPP and possibly a few percentage points of uncollectable recyclables doesn’t bury the principal.
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Ray:
Trust the Daily Mail to try to make it look as bad as it can!
Of course it will be more difficult for people in small flats than it would be for those in larger houses…. so it might be necessary to have different systems of separation to suit the different situations.
Separating out food and dirty waste is the most important separation because if it is included in any of the other waste streams, it contaminates everything it comes into contact with.
You could then have 2 other bins…. one (small) bin for residual waste (stuff that cannot be recycled). This bin you should have to pay a hefty price for based on how much you put out.
The second bin could be for all the recyclates that would then go to a MRF (Mechanical Recycling Facility) to be separated into the separate streams. However there are problems with combining everything together…… you get a much lower quality of recyclate and therefore a reduced price in the market place. A lot of people do not empty their bottles and cans etc of liquid which then tips onto everything else contaminating it. Therefore, bottles, cans and tins should be seperated from the materials that they could ruin. So… that would be a third bin (or bag)… you could put plastics into that too.
Personally, I think that the ‘polythene bags’ described in your post for some of the smaller waste streams, seem like a good idea. They could hang on the back of a door so not take up much room and keeping things like lightbulbs out of other waste streams is probably a good idea…. particularly the low energy ones that contain mercury.
The more you separate at source, the better the quality of recyclate and less sorting is needed further down the line. It all depends how responsible we, as a community, want to be in returning resources back to production. Too much contamination and those recyclates don’t end up back in the market place…. they end up as a ‘problem’ that needs to be ‘disposed’ of…… which I know (depressingly!) wouldn’t bother some people in Guernsey.
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Martino
Your second paragraph is spot on. I had similar neighbours until recently and always thought the same thing.
As for waste reduction, has anyone mentioned this excellent scenario to the Environmental Health director, another expensive job justifying States import whose ideas will lead to a more rapid filling up of Mont Cuet than Martino’s neighbours could ever dream of.
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Here is an interesting article that shows how San Fransisco are getting up to 80% diversion from landfill this year. They are aiming for Zero…. they might never get to ‘Zero’… but that doesn’t matter. The point is that by aiming for it, they are getting way up there and outstripping communities like ours, that are not aiming for it. They have used education, explanation and made some elements ‘mandatory’… i.e. the composting of biodegradable waste. They have also used financial incentives…… the more you recycle & compost, the more money you save.
Read the article here…. http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-12-san-francisco-watches-its-waste-line
If in the article you click on the…. ‘ Q&A with San Fran’s top recycling official’ you will find out how they are doing it. Tellingly, the enthusiasm and drive to push the envelope is coming from within the department. They are the people with the ‘vision’ and who are determined to make it happen. In Guernsey, we have Dep Ogier and Dep Le Pelley in the Department who are keen, but they are outnumbered by those who are not.
In my opinion, taking the community in the right direction….. towards waste minimisation, would be better achieved if we followed S.F.’s example, (leadership) rather than the BPEO consultation process which I think is going to lead us open to being directed away from following the Waste Hierarchy.
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Rosie,
The top of the Waste Hierarchy should be Refuse (to buy). We all have stuff in the back of cupboards we have never used. Older more experienced people stop and think before they buy “Will I use this frequentyly, do I really need it?” We need to educate the youngsters to do this too.
Martino,
The Constables of St. Martin’s wanted to introduce a scheme charging for special bin sacks. This seemed a very good idea to me as people who don’t recycle would pay more. The scheme did not go ahead as the law would need to be changed. I hope the idea is still being pursued.
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Martino
Good post, I think pay as you throw is an excellent idea for immediate waste mitigation.
Admittedly my wife and I usually fill 1 black sack per week, occasionally 2 on exceptional weeks but a couple in the adjoining lane regularly put out 4 bags and although I’m not motivated enough to keep a complete tab on them 1 week they had 8 bags, 4 of them all sat on its own large cardboard box.
To my surprise, in the morning all the rubbish was gone, I was at least expecting the cardboard boxes to remain.
I think that pretty hefty penalties should be levied at these people, if I can recyclce and limit myself to 1 black sack then why cant everyone else, I appreciate it may not be as easy if you have small children for example but even then you could have an allowance for children.
I actually find recycling quite cathartic, but them the little boy in me likes hearing the glass smash!!!
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Dismissing people who don’t recycle as ‘lazy, selfish, antisocial and irresponsible’ is unfair.
There could be lots of other reasons. They may not understand what the environmental benefits are (the States doesn’t do a very good job of justifying the value of the recycling policy from a global environmental perspective, apart from handwaving appeals to ‘greenness’). They may contribute to environmental causes in other ways, just not this one. They may be disenfranchised with a lack of leadership on the matter from the States. They may have just got fed up with seeing their neighbours not bother and given up. They may have skipped over that stage, and just taken the view that recycling individually just gives the States a stronger excuse not to take the necessary actions at every level in the waste hierarchy.
And yes, some of them probably are just lazy and irresponsible. But then we all know that some of the people who are quick to criticize will be the same people who fervently recycle before driving back in their 4×4 to have a spa bath in their massive, overheated, under-insulated barn conversion…
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Sheila.
I agree. Infact the top of the Hierarchy is ‘Prevention’…… preventing the waste being generated in the first place. That might be from not buying things that we know will only be used temporarily before being discarded. On a political level, it might be looking at some of the things that are being imported into the island that we know we can’t deal with locally. There is one company I can think of , for example, that imports packaging that is unrecyclable locally, to package fresh food here for the local market. Preventing things like that would be a start. Why don’t we make companies like M&S take their packaging that we can’t recycle here back? Why don’t we make it a prerequisite of coming to Guernsey?
The next level in the hierarchy is ‘Reduce’. A Pay as You Throw system would be a good start for that. What you described in St Martins would be a good example. Why are we not solving the little obstacles that prevent us moving forward with such ideas??? If the will was there at political level, these obstacles would be dealt with. The fact that they are not leaves me sceptical about the whole of this ‘consultation’ process.
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If household rubbish was invented today I’m reasonably sure the solution wouldn’t be putting into blacksacks leaving outside your and tipping down large quarry.
San Francisco’s model has been unbelievably successful by the looks of the article; setting aside the goal, I’d be intrigued to know how it was sold to the public.
Pointing to the finish line is one thing, but navigating there is something else and, in my view, always the biggest stumbling block. This always overlooked by proposers of many Big Ideas.
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You make a point ChrisJ about 4×4 owning rampant consumers who recycle but at least they are trying. What would you rather them do? Not recycle? Chuck it all out for landfill?
No, I wasn’t saying everyone who refuses to recycle is all of those things – lazy, selfish, anti-social and irresponsible – but they are at least one of those things if not two or more. They must be to do (or not do) what they do. Maybe I should have added ignorant to the list because some people don’t even think of the consequences when they chuck a perfectly good alu can in a black sack.
Personally I think we should have a zero tolerance approach to litter as they do in Singapore as part of the waste strategy. And while Scott and his lot are talking, talking, talking, they should be taking some obvious steps like putting plastic bottle bring banks at all the smaller bring bank points. Actual tangible interim measures and relatively cheasp compared to the overblown consultation exercise that seems to be lasting forever.
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Ray – gotta love the Daily Mail!
But contrast that nightmare scenario with the kerbside collection system that operates in Wandsworth, SW London – an area with lots of flats and maisonettes as well as houses.
There, every house/flat gets a roll of orange bin bags for free (with further supplies arriving on a regular basis or being provided free on request if you run out). You put all of your recycling into one bag (or as many as you need to fill) and put them out on the pavement one morning a week. No need to keep a multitude of different recepticles taking up space in your flat or making your front path look ugly. No need to sort paper from glass from plastic.
This does not deal with food waste or garden waste, but there are other solutions for those.
Of course, it needs to get sorted after collection, but it means that the recycling rate is extremely high. Make it easy for people to do it, and they will.
I’d rather my taxes paid a small army of sorters rather than keep filling Mont Cuet.
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Neil.
In my earlier post I suggested going into the link in the article that explains how they did / do it. The link is here… http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-12-the-city-that-said-no-to-garbage/
What is quite clear is that they are investing in the front end of the waste stream… capturing the materials before they become waste. Man hours spent working with businesses and people to make sure that ignorance is not a factor in not complying with the strategy. Financial incentives and also laws in place to support the aims.
In Guernsey we still have too many people in government who are focused on the back-end of the waste stream….. the residual fraction….. the fraction that has been allowed to become waste. As long as that continues, we miss out on the opportunity to have a waste strategy based on low-tech community based solutions and we run the risk of ending up with another large machine of sorts.
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We don’t need legislation. It seems to me the people of Guensey are already doing a pretty good job of recycling their waste (try finding an empty skip to put your cardboard in these days).
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CD
You are right…….almost. There are ‘some’ people doing a ‘pretty good job of recycling’ and there are even some people who are doing a fantastic job of recycling. But there are still many, many people who are either not recycling at all, or who are only recycling some things and only sometimes….. when the mood takes them.
To judge by the example of S.F. some legislation is necessary to make sure that everyone is complying with the strategy aims, for the benefit of the whole community.
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I’ts not going to happen, but i would hate to be at the above posters christmas do ,even more boring than the mutual back slapping society ,where a length of rope is a must, instead of chattering excitedly about the new order of things, and facts and figures spouted from various websites which suit your one track mindedness ,the majority of you really need to check your page number and swot up on people. Because if you can’t get some citizens to stand up and be responsible for illegitimate children ,or to read and obey the highway code (cyclists mostly)or to wear their seatbelts ,or not use the mobile while driving etc etc ,then you are sure as hell not going to get them to spend their time sorting out all the diddly doo dahs into bags ,buckets bins or whatever.
As for wet woolly ideas like, pay as you throw i can see a lot more (save as you heave)going on over the cliffs by previously law abiding citizens whose legislation bucket is well and truly full ,and like it or not there are people out there who don’t belong to the floral society or the womens institute or similar ,and really don’t give a rats **** where the rubbish goes ,in fact they think that this problem has been with us for over 40 years and the states did nothing !!!,you blew it when you had the chance to incinerate so you will now have to live with it .
By the way i wasn’t for or against any sensible suggestions which solved the problems by whatever means ,but the way we are going is just too silly for any practical person to comprehend take for instance (
I’m sure they do PAYT in other countries so simply charge per black sack each sack would have to have an ID sticker to identify it or it doesn’t get collected)i’m sure that will worry the above mentioned nasty people to the point of apoplexy or even to the point of chucking it in the nearest field.
All credit to those who are trying, but you have to get real, because not everyone (i suspect most people) are not as keen and enthusiastic as you are, but good luck.
Oh and brought up in an entirely seperate disscussion a couple of days ago with someone who is in the national waste disposal biz (and you won’t find this in the daily mail or the recyclers gazzette)is that china is buying up all the plastic it can ,recycled and otherwise ,containerising it and shipping it home to burn in their coal fired power stations ,presumably so that they can save their huge resources of coal until needed ,but no worries cos we will keep warm pressing banana skins and tea bags into blocks to put on the garden .
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I like the US approach I saw on a documentary the other week.
EVERYTHING goes in the one bin and gets collected and transported to a sorting facility. Anything recyclable gets sorted either mechanically or by hand – what’s left goes to landfill.
Where it is topfilled with shredded car tires and soil composted from green waste.
And tapped for natural gas to produce electricty.
Whilst maybe not fully applicable to Guernsey, surely the most efficient way to transport household waste is all in one go, not in a fleet of vehicles, one for each waste stream ? And sorting it all in one place. Think of all the trips to the bring banks this would save ( both by depositors and collectors …. ).
Suez would have been great if only they hadn’t insisted on burning stuff at the end of the process ……
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Reading the article properly now………:)…….. It looks like there was a strong mayoral drive behind the project. That strange old big name, big personality American thing where everyone adores the big man.
Hurdle numero uno!
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there’s no need to get people to sort it themselves. put everything in a box of some sort which gets collected once a week by a truck that has sorting compartments in it. if people are sensible they will have half sorted everything already to make it fit in the box easier.
truck sorts as it collects (people in the back as in the uk).
or alternatively dont sort it, drive to a massive warehouse somewhere and sort it there. nice easy work for either the 400 odd unemployed people, old people who just want to earn a few quid doing menial work, or those on community service. simples?
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Neil.
It is not the Mayor that is the main thrust behind the project…… it is several people from both within industry and the government and civil service… all of whom seem to be progressive and creative thinkers. And ontop of that, seem determined to succeed in what were originally seen as very ambitious aims. They all see that ‘waste’ is something that has to be virtually eradicated from our societies at some point, wether we like it or not. Rather than raising their eyes to the skies and declaring that that is impossible, they have rolled up their sleeves and worked out a program to at least take them in that direction. Once started, it gathered momentum, and they discovered that they had a ‘powerful ally’…. the ordinary S.F. citizen, who once educated and informed about the program and the reasons for it….. were right behind it. As the article says… most people do want to do the right thing.
I like the fact that at the beginning, the people pushing this program saw an ‘unique opportunity’ for S.F. That is exactly how I see Guernseys situation. This is an opportunity for Guernsey to aim high and in the process create a fantastic reputation as being a community seeking to become part of the solution rather than just a hefty contributor to the problem. We could come out of this smelling of roses or we could continue with the same old same old, and continue to be regarded as a community that just takes as much as it can for itself.
But you are right to say ‘Hurdle numero uno’… because to succeed, we do need those ‘visionaries’ in the key positions and I don’t know if we do. I don’t see much evidence of it. PSD’s Deps Ogier & Le Pelley (I believe) would both like to see this kind of waste strategy…. they are right on message. But do they have the drive and most importantly, do they have the back-up and support within the department. They certainly don’t at Deputy level where they are out-numbered by Suez fans.
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Rosie
You seem to be one of the visionaries but don’t have the political support. My point about buy-in and personality driver remains.
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I love the apparent view that some have intimated that PAYT for refuse, means recycling and therefore recycling will save you money.
Increased collection points, increased collections, surely the cost of recycling would increase leading to (one way or another) the taxpayers coughing up more???
Maybe I’m wrong about the costs……
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Waste minimisation must start at Parish Douzaine level,look at the waste program in St Martin, Ole Tat’ as he’s known up the Plaza Wasting Civil Servants valued time, with his persistance on the Parish Welcome sign,as he explains on air Radio Guernsey “my persistance has payed off,having involved lenthy meetings with the various States commitees,hasn’t cost the St Martins rate payer as the States have paid all” I may not live in st Martin, but presume their Population pay Income Tax as well, Stamp out this Christmas Turkey!!!
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Neil.
Most of us have kids…. you included. It is in all our interests to try to make Guernsey point towards a more sustainable future, if not for ourselves, at least for our children. Why are we not all telling our politicians that? What is your ‘vision’ of the future?
Adrian.
If we are going to generate ‘waste’ then we are going to have to pay for it….. whatever we do….. there really is no getting away from it. Increased collections would cost more but they would save us from having to spend even more money further down the line. The incinerator was going to cost us almost £10m per year to service the loan and run the plant. The gate fee was going to be £200 per tonne. Recycling in comparison to that is cheap.
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A start should be made in cutting down on waste in the first place,much of the shopping one does today the amount of packing exceeds the quantity of food packed.And how about tins and bottles,how about putting a deposit on these,that would also help to limit the bottles/tins littering the Island.But to me the most important issue on “waste” is the sewage problem,we had reason,after a meal in the Town on the 10th Oct,to drive to St Sampsons along the coast,there was an easterly blowing,and the stench was disgusting,we felt sorry for those living along the East coast,or maybe they have become so used to the smell they believe its the sea?And we come to Guernsey every year,its a lovely place,but you must move with the times and sort out the waste problem, or one day you may suffocate in your own dirt!And as many of you agree,its gonna cost,but your kids kids will be grateful.
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