Think of waste and you can bet that images of litter, landfills and wheelie bins spring to mind. Not many people associate the contents of their recycling caddy with remanufacturing, green chemistry, or materials innovation. It is this lack of vision that frustrates David Palmer-Jones, CEO of Suez UK – especially with a snap election coming up.
“It’s still very difficult to drag politicians away from the issue of domestic arrangements for waste collection,” he reflects.
“There have been countless reports written around the potential economic benefits of reducing the waste we generate, and transforming it into other products and materials. But unless we buy into that, then we’ll always be drawn back to the lowest common denominator – which is, when will my bins get taken away?”
The three main party manifestos released last month reflect this short-sighted thinking, says Palmer-Jones. He feels politicians have missed an opportunity to view resource management as a potentially valuable lever that could help kickstart the UK’s much-mooted industrial strategy (pdf). It can be noted, for example, that any mention of waste or resource management falls under the environment or communities sections of the manifestos, rather than the economy.
Labour’s manifesto talks of setting guiding targets for plastic bottle deposit schemes while the Liberal Democrats pledge a 5p charge on disposable coffee cups. The Conservatives take a vaguer tone, stating that they will do more to reduce litter and support better packaging. All these pledges are a welcome nod to extended producer responsibility, but taken in isolation, it’s doubtful they go far enough.
“The manifestos talk about cliched waste types like disposable coffee cups, plastic bottles and bags. These are all important, they can act as a gateway to raising awareness and behavioural change, but we tend to be pulled back into a piecemeal discussion about what’s the next bad packaging product, and how are we going to deal with it. None of the manifestos show any real joined-up thinking,” says Palmer-Jones.
Out of the three, the Liberal Democrats go into the most depth. The party has dusted off some of its 2015 manifesto pledges, reiterating its intention to introduce a zero waste act. This includes a statutory waste recycling target of 70%, which would bring England more in line with Wales and Scotland. Significantly, the manifesto mentions the term circular economy and links it to economic growth – but the detail stops there.
Palmer-Jones wants more flesh on the bone. “If there is an industrial strategy, then the materials that we use to support a greater emphasis on British manufacturing and to encourage innovation need to be brought into sharper focus,” he says.
The case for interlinking environmental stewardship with economic productivity is stacking up. Suez’s own report suggests £9bn could be added to the UK’s economy by 2030, by integrating circular economy principles into the industrial strategy. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) says an expansion of circular economy activities could create over 500,000 British jobs by 2030. The Green Alliance has called for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Treasury to “give as much attention to resource productivity as they do to labour productivity”, to make the UK more competitive.
Despite this, the government’s industrial strategy green paper barely acknowledges the level of contribution the waste and resources industries could make to future innovation and prosperity. In 2015-16, Innovate UK allocated just £6m of its £547m annual budget for research into resource efficiency, according to the think tank Policy Exchange.
Palmer-Jones thinks such oversight presents a potential risk. He points to strong manufacturing economies like China, Japan and Germany who have all implemented strategies to grow their productivity outputs, and to safeguard their raw materials base. “Is the UK being left behind in this thinking if we are truly to have a manufacturing base – or have we given up on a manufacturing base?” he questions.
Of course, waste isn’t just about harvesting materials for manufacturers, it’s also about energy generation. It’s estimated that 3.5m tonnes of secondary materials leave British shores every year in the form of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) exports to supply waste-to-energy plants across Europe. Many of these facilities provide heat and power to homes and industry.
Palmer-Jones reckons that’s the equivalent of the UK giving away Birmingham’s annual energy requirements. “If we need more joined-up thinking between resources and industrial strategies, then why are we giving energy away?”
Once the UK exits the EU, how economically viable will it be for the UK to keep exporting its discards abroad? RDF exporters are already facing extra costs due to the fall in sterling, and a rise in the fees paid to European treatment facilities. While some new domestic waste-to-energy plants are being built in the UK, it could be the case of too little, too late. Landfill closures mean that some regions could face significant waste treatment capacity shortages in the future.
“I think we head towards quite a difficult period in the next five years,” says Palmer-Jones. “We need to find a balance between a recycling level that we feel comfortable with, that we can create markets for, and other forms of treatment like waste-to-energy. Let’s have that educated debate now. It’s time to move on from discussions around bin collections.”
So come 8 June, what would be his message to the new government? “Stop looking at the environment in terms of media soundbytes, and populist issues like litter. Look instead at the huge economic opportunity that exists there.”
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