Waste Management in the Rural Sector

South West Rural Update

Sandy Park – Exeter

19th February 2008

Neil Holland – Mil-tek Direct

Re-cycling & Waste Management

The Mil-tek Presentation

• Why Re-cycle

• Perception of Waste

• Legislation Drivers

• Customers & Businesses

• Costs and Revenues

• Case Study

• Open Forum – Q & A Session

How waste is perceived

• A necessity in Business – Waste has always been back of house, low cost, low visibility

• Unglamorous - None of the attractions of IT, HR or finance

• Low priority - no great need to change the way waste is handled.

• INCREASED COST HAS CHANGED PERCEPTIONS

Typical waste management c.2001

What changed?• Legislation leading to an end to the UKs

dependence on cheap access to landfill

• Landfill infrastructure running out fast

• Public perceptions of waste and recycling changing

• Re-cycling can save Business money

The EU Landfill Directive 1999

• Made the environmental case for reducing landfill disposal.

• Set binding targets to reduce the volumes of waste member states send to landfill. Fiscal penalties for non-compliance.

• Introduced new requirements for landfill site operators to make provision for maintenance of the sites long after operations cease.

• Pre-treatment - finally introduced in the UK in October 2007

Landfill Tax

• Introduced in 1996

• Larger increases since 2007 budget – now a major driver of the increase in waste costs

• Politically neutral

• Still very low in UK relative to our EU neighbours - eg Ireland

Landfill Tax

• 2003 =£14• 2004 =£15• 2005 =£18• 2006 =£21• 2007 =£24• 2008 =£32• 2009 =£40• 2010 =£48• By 2012 total landfill costs could be well over £100 /

tonne

Public perception – image is everything to some !

Public perception

• Consumers increasingly exposed to higher levels of domestic recycling

• The next generation of consumers will be even less tolerant of organisations who fail to recycle

• Organisations employing best re-cycling practices will enjoy positive PR and reputation

Can we value aesthetic cost of waste?

Waste disposal in the UK is still very cheap

• Domestic waste costs lumped in with Council Tax – hides the true cost

• Landfill rates in other EU member states is much higher

• Both households and business should expect large increases in the cost of disposal.

Recycling will cease to be optional

• Commercially essential to reduce costs

• Consumers will demand best practice

• Legislative barriers to old methods of disposal (Packaging Regs & Pre-treatment already introduced)

Many firms still aren’t ready

• Research carried out by the EA recently suggests that a third of small businesses aren’t aware of the requirement to pre-treat their waste - that’s up to 1.6million firms who could be breaking the law and are potentially liable to EA fines. Netregs 2007

Recycling is no longer optional !

• A quote from an accountant in the Daily Telegraph in response to the pre-treatment laws (source KPMG)

“…the first step towards making it illegal not to recycle”

• Daily Telegraph 15 November 2007

Recycling adds ££££s

• Every tonne of material removed from the landfill stream saves the organisation upwards of £50.00

• Some recyclable materials command revenue – cardboard and plastic, metals, textiles, EPS

Why would you put it into landfill?

What happens when there is too much recycling?

• Consumer demand for recycled products

• Many recyclables are derived from finite resources - plastics from oil

• Pressure on land use for pulp – more profitable to grow food or fuel crops.

• Low cost of shipping recycled goods to areas of high demand (far east) from western consumer economies

Case Study

• Care Home

• 40 Bedroom

• No Re-cycling

• 4 1100 Wheelie Bins twice a week

• 1 X Clinical Waste once a week

Can Mil-tek save this Care Home Money ?

Is it Financially Viable ?

• Clinical Waste – No change

• Current costs £10.00 per bin - £80.00 p.w.

• Reduction of 75%

• All Cardboard, Newspapers, Paper, most soft plastics, Tins, Cans & PET Bottles removed from land-fill stream

• Equipment less that £20.00. Plus £20.00 for 2 Bins – Savings Over 4K per annum

CostPublic PerceptionHealth & Safety IssueSave Space/StorageCustomer ExpectationsChange in LegislationCurrent AffairsGlobal Warming

Prioritising Recycling?

Mil-tek Re-cycling & Waste Management

• Open Forum – Q & A Session