North East Area Waste Plan

3.2 Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)

The following paragraphs describe in detail the BPEO for the management of municipal solid waste in the North East. This is shown graphically by Table 3.3 and the estimated tonnages of waste managed by the various components of the BPEO are shown in Tables 3.4 to 3.7.

In developing the North East AWP, the Waste Strategy Area Group was concerned to ensure an open and transparent process and one, which would encourage stakeholder involvement. The North East Area Waste Plan has therefore developed through close partnership working between Aberdeenshire Council, Aberdeen City Council, Moray Council, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Enterprise Grampian and Scottish Enterprise Moray Badenoch and Strathspey, as well as the voluntary sector, the waste industry and waste producers. It also took into consideration the findings from the public consultation held throughout July and August 2002.

The BPEO for the management of MSW in the North East is summarised in Figure 3.2.

The BPEO sets strategic targets for the Waste Strategy Area, detailed in this section. Local authority waste implementation plans will devise the localised delivery systems based on each of the local authority’s ability to achieve a proportion of the BPEO for the North East.

In working with the National Resource and Waste Forum (NRWF), SEPA is developing a national framework to guide the work of the waste strategy groups and other key players on waste prevention. This will include research into best practice, both within the UK and abroad. The outputs from this research will be twofold:

The North East Waste Strategy Area Group will then draw together a local stakeholder group with the remit to identify existing waste-prevention initiatives and develop a North East area waste-prevention plan. This plan will set targets, identify actions to be undertaken locally and will tie in to national initiatives on education, promotion and emerging policy instruments.

The reuse and refurbishment of waste is implicit in the North East AWP. Value is retained and the reuse and refurbishment activities can be used to stimulate social inclusion by providing employment and producing goods, which can be used by those who would otherwise struggle to afford goods of that type. The not-for-profit sector have an important role in taking this forward, for further details of local initiatives see Text box 2.

Action 13
Work with national awareness raising bodies (e.g. SWAG, RAGS) and local organisations (e.g. NESBWMP) to help develop and realise the objectives and targets of the AWP.

The BPEO requires a significant increase in the quantities of materials collected and forwarded to reprocessors for recycling. This will involve significantly increasing the segregated kerbside collections of paper, plastic, textiles, and ferrous and non-ferrous metals. It is possible that glass will also be collected in this way, however, any collection system which produces a mixed (colour) glass fraction will limit the reprocessing options for glass. To achieve the recycling targets set out in Table 3.1, an increase in household participation in segregated kerbside collections will be required to beat least 86%. This is illustrated in Figure 3.2, which shows indicative levels of participation in segregated kerbside collection of recyclables which requires to be achieved in each of the target years.

Aberdeenshire and Moray Council intend to reduce the capacity of the residual waste collection and make a kerbside recycling service available to 86% of households, with the balance being covered by an enhancement to the council’s recycling centres.

Aberdeen City Council intends to reduce the volume of residual waste by introducing a segregated kerbside collection for dry recyclables to 100% of households, with the balance being served by the conversion of 1 in 4 communal street bins to recycling bins.

There are a number of methods by which segregated kerbside collection can be undertaken. The method chosen will be dependant upon housing type and geographical location and will be determined after further investigation.

In addition to segregated kerbside collections, there will be a need to progressively increase the number of mini recycling centres in each of the three local authority areas. These ‘bring-to’ sites will cater for households who do not have segregated kerbside collections. Table 3.2 gives indicative numbers of mini recycling centres, which will be established in each of the local authority areas. The actual numbers required will be dependant upon the extent and success of segregated kerbside collection schemes and local housing density.

In addition, new facilities and infrastructure will be required in order to sort and package recyclable materials prior to onward transportation to reprocessors. This may involve an upgrade of existing transfer stations or alternatively the provision of a dedicated MRF.

Aberdeen City Council will be converting 1 in 4 street bins in the city centre to collect dry recyclate resulting in a total of 936 recycling bins. The communal recycling bins will be used by the surrounding households but can also be used by members of the public.

Increasing the quantity of separately collected compostable kitchen and garden wastes will also be required. This will be achieved through the introduction of segregated kerbside collections (kitchen and garden compostables) and enhancement of recycling/civic amenity sites (provided with separate skips for compostable garden wastes). To achieve the composting targets will again require increasing householder participation rates in segregated collections. This is illustrated in Table 3.3, which shows indicative levels of participation in segregated kerbside collection of compostable wastes that require to be achieved in each of the target years.

In partnership with the Recycling Advisory Group Scotland (RAGS), Aberdeenshire Council has appointed a community liaison officer to build on the success of previous home composting initiatives and work directly with communities. The liaison officer will work to develop the community-recycling network, with an emphasis on community composting schemes. In terms of centralised composting, as Aberdeenshire Council currently applies a composting process to treat mixed waste, it has no plans to introduce a segregated green waste collection. The mixed waste will be subject to source segregation, following the introduction of kerbside collections of dry recyclates. However, the council retains the capacity to introduce a more intense source segregated collection, should it be required by future legislation.

Action 14
Identify and encourage communities to participate in home composting schemes.

Table 3.3 - Number of Households Participating in Segregated Kerbside Collections of Compostable Wastes

Aberdeen City Council launched a segregated kerbside green waste pilot in April 2002 and this will be extended to all households with gardens by 2010.

Moray: The current ‘on farm’ composting of garden waste will be extended when the kerbside collection of green waste commences. The council will continue to collect and shred this waste prior to handing over to a local farmers for composting.

An in-vessel composting plant will treat the segregated waste fines from the existing treatment plant at Moycroft, Elgin. Trials are being undertaken in conjunction with Aberdeenshire Council on the use of their in-vessel plant.

The BPEO recognises the need for an element of thermal treatment as one of the waste treatment options to ensure the BMW targets for 2010 and subsequent targets are met.

However, due to the potentially long lead time for the development of an energy from waste plant (in terms of planning and permitting), action should be taken as early as possible to ensure that facilities are in place to meet the targets set by the Landfill Directive.

However, it is clearly unacceptable to move from a regime of landfilling to one that advocates total thermal treatment in any of its forms. There are fractions of the waste stream that are non-renewable resources, such as plastics and, arguably, some of the paper waste. Aluminium and ferrous wastes will not enhance the thermal performance of a plant and will be recovered prior to processing. Any thermal treatment for recovering the energy value of the waste will be for that fraction of the waste that is not practical for recycling. Ensuring that only those wastes, which are best suited for combustion, are combusted and those suitable for recycling are recycled. SEPA’s emerging policy on the use of energy recovery technologies supports this strategy.

MSW that is not recycled, composted or treated in the energy from waste plant will be disposed of to landfill. In addition, reject material from all these processes will also be landfilled.

Aberdeen City has no landfills licensed to take MSW. Waste at present is handled by SITA and disposed of in Aberdeenshire or exported to Bin landfill near Perth. Aberdeenshire Council use their own landfill sites at Banchory and Brandon Howe and private sector landfills at Stoneyhill and Wester Hatton. Wester Hatton site has been provisionally classified as a hazardous landfill so may not be able to accept MSW in the future. Stoneyhill landfill has a provisional closing date of 2008 and as they will be accepting waste from Highland Council, its lifetime must be regarded as significantly shorter than 5 years. Brandon Howe is expected to close in 2006, leaving only the Banchory site with significant licensed capacity post 2008. As a result, landfill capacity in the North east is being reviewed. Moray Council has capacity until end of 2021.

Household hazardous wastes such as batteries, pesticides, solvents, etc., contain chemicals that are potentially toxic. If these wastes are not removed from the waste stream they can adversely affect the environmental performance of the waste-management techniques employed to manage MSW. Collections of these materials will be reviewed by the Waste Strategy Area group.

A national partnership project is being delivered to investigate the options available to Local Authorities in Scotland for collecting household hazardous waste separately from the domestic waste stream. Once an initial study has taken place to review the current situation on household hazardous waste recovery in the UK and Europe, and what future legislation will mean for local authorities, pilot collection trials will be implemented to accurately determine the logistical and economic realities of separate household hazardous waste collections. The project will also investigate current public awareness of the issues to develop effective education campaigns.