Thought-provoking analysis from industry leaders

2 • For more information on Energy from Waste 2015, and to download regular issues of the Energy from Waste essays, visit www.efwlondon.eu

the urgency of a new approach to resource management has never been clearer

The role of the waste management industry has changed significantly over the past decade and is set to completely transform again within

coming years. With disposal no longer the name of the game, waste managers are finding themselves in more creative roles as they deliver the waste hierarchy, keep materials in the loop and maximise value in the resource-use cycle.

The skills required are diversifying as waste managers join forces with business and government to develop a circular economy. Achieving long-term growth will ultimately depend on the industry’s ability to evolve with the demands of our time.

Around the world, rising commodity prices are driving resource efficiency and closing the relationship gap between the waste and manufacturing sectors. Scarcity of resources will increasingly focus our minds towards managing materials more intelligently. Take remanufacturing for example, reducing the amount of raw materials needed by reusing what we already have. Innovations such as those taking place in remanufacturing can contribute to a decoupling of the economy and waste generation.

The British manufacturing sector is seeing something of a renaissance at the moment, and is providing a significant potential for the reprocessing sector to demonstrate the quality of its outputs and encourage demand for recyclate. If we can be successful as a nation in embedding

the use of recycled materials into our growing manufacturing operations, we will be able to create a mutually beneficial situation in which manufacturers have a stable supply of high quality affordable materials, and the waste sector can have the security of demand for its materials. This can lead to growth through a more certain climate for investors in both sectors.

Some promising case studies are emerging from other countries, such as the take-back scheme in Japan that is recovering 72 per cent of WEEE (compared to the UK’s 32 per cent) and the proliferation of used cooking oil recycling facilities in the USA, Brazil and China. What examples from abroad show us is that so much more value exists in our waste streams than we are recovering. Sustainable resource management and the circular economy represent a significant economic opportunity and long-term plans need to be put in place over the next few years.

While the municipal recycling level still depends largely on householder behaviour, which isn’t shifting as dramatically as we would like, industrial and commercial (I&C) waste streams offer more of an opportunity. More homogenous than domestic waste, and relying more on the will of head offices and the demonstrable

benefits to a business’ bottom line, source separated materials from British industry can be recycled at impressive rates.

Dealing with the remaining non-recyclable waste streams needs infrastructure, and the sorting and recovery of I&C waste will increasingly become a priority as the gains outweigh the costs to business, the tax payer and the waste management industry. The growing use of materials recovery facilities to extract recyclables will in turn produce a steady and growing stream of refuse derived fuel (RDF) or solid recovered fuel (SRF – to meet the specifications of higher-energy demanding facilities such as cement kilns).

The export of RDF and SRF will also continue to grow as the European Union seeks to rationalise on the number of treatment facilities needed across Member States. It is both economically and environmentally beneficial to use this fuel where infrastructure already exists. This model also compliments the European Commission’s ambition to create an electricity “super grid” and deepening co-dependency between nations. As ever, Britain’s undecided relationship with the European Union will have knock-on effects on our ability to make the most of international networks for sustainable resource management.

Challenges to achieving a circular economyIt’s encouraging to see government bodies recognising the value of ‘waste’ commodities to our economy and

Responding to a changing environment – how will the waste industry achieve long term growth?

Ian WakelinCEO Biffa

• 3For more information on Energy from Waste 2015, and to download regular issues of the Energy from Waste essays, visit www.efwlondon.eu

addressing the need for a more circular pattern of resource management. This represents a seismic shift in attitude from seeing waste as an environmental issue to a business opportunity, and will lead to further investment in the sector. Economic and business models are being reworked to incorporate resource efficiency, strengthened by the acknowledgement that linear resource use is unsustainable.

The economic benefits of sustainable resource use are undeniable. Recycling of waste materials from industry and commerce benefits the bottom line, with a growing number of customers now achieving zero waste to landfill and zero waste management cost. It is clearly a sound business model where the right systems are in place to make wastes easily recyclable.

So what do we need to keep the waste industry growing and developing in the right direction? One of our key challenges is the lack of accurate data on resources and waste. As a result, there will be specific challenges in forecasting and modelling for a more circular economy.

On the one hand, keeping more materials in the loop will make data management easier (provided adequate

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systems are put in place to collect the large amounts of information). On the other hand, while consumer behaviour continues to favour the convenient, the disposable, and critically – the cheaper products with shorter life spans – we will continue to have a mixed, non-recyclable and relatively unpredictable waste stream to manage. To a large extent, developing reliable projections of what materials will be available for reprocessing in the UK is no simpler today than it was ten or twenty years ago.

Earth Overshoot Day – the day each year at which humanity has used its sustainable allocation of resources and effectively goes ‘into the red’ in terms of resource use – happened this year on 19 August. In 2000 that day was 1 October, so the urgency of a new approach to resource management has never been clearer. The waste industry’s role will surely be one of collaboration, as we work with our partners in other sectors to drive an increasingly efficient management of resources and recover maximum value from each unavoidable waste stream.

It seems like a long time since the waste hierarchy was first developed, and yet its tenet holds true today:• Reduce our demands for resource

use and reuse what we have through remanufacturing and building for disassembly.

• Source separate materials for recycling so that the highest values can be recovered and supplied to our manufacturing sector, providing a consistent material stream and reducing the economic uncertainties of fluctuating material costs.

• Recover as much energy as possible from what is left, providing low-cost and predictable fuel supplies and in

turn reducing our reliance on non-renewable fuels.

For the waste industry to achieve long-term growth it will need to harness the knowledge, intellect and experience of its human resources – it is people who will make the change to a circular economy happen. Much as we have embedded an understanding of sustainability in our children, we need to encourage a culture of resource efficiency and collaboration in our young entrepreneurs, waste managers and government officers.

Through investing in professional development, being open to new business models and embracing a culture of cooperation, the resource management sector will become one of the most relevant industries of our time.

More homogenous than domestic waste, and relying more on the will of head offices and the demonstrable benefits to a business’ bottom line, source separated materials from British industry can be recycled at impressive rates.

it is people who will make the change to a circular economy happen….we need to encourage a culture of resource efficiency and collaboration in our young entrepreneurs, waste managers and government officers.