Waste Strategy

Leicestershire's Long Term Waste Strategy

On April 8th 2008 County Councillor Max Hunt gave a talk at John Storer House, Loughborough about current thinking on waste management.

Although Leicestershire Councils are recycling about 40% of their domestic waste, much of the rest has been going to landfill which has got to stop. We cannot go on burying our waste because, not only are there not enough holes in the county, but by doing so we are allowing thousand of tons of greenhouse gases to escape and damage the ozone layer.

European waste laws are under review, the second reading is now underway. Environmental groups across the continent are calling for more waste prevention, reuse, recycling and composting – without more incineration.

Max, who has been working on the County's project to find a long term solution to this problem, explained the options being considered by Leicestershire County Council which are:

• an incinerator
• a composter

a giant ball-mill mechanical processor.

Currently waste disposal companies are being asked to provide solutions to the problem without the method being specified. These could involve one or a combination of the options. Once proposals are made, people need to become involved, since once a certain point in the tender process is reached, a change of mind would be very expensive for the council, which would have to pay compensation to any contractors who had gone through the complex tender process.

For more information , see Friends of the Earth Stopping the Waste briefing (PDF format - 358K), http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/stopping_the_waste.pdf

Or, Friends of the Earth Europe web page.