Context
There are five major waste streams in Gloucestershire: Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Commercial and Industrial Waste (C&I), Construction and Demolition Waste, Metals, and Hazardous Waste. This policy is mainly concerned with MSW and C&I waste.
Up to 2006 MSW grew year on year. Since 2006 the amount has declined year on year even though the number of households has continued to increase, as people are producing less waste and changes have been made in the way waste is collected. For C&I waste the best assumption is that there will be no growth in the total amount managed for the foreseeable future.
Strategic Framework
The Waste Hierarchy sets an order of environmental preference for the disposal of waste, namely Prevention, Preparing for Re-use, Recycling, Other Recovery and Disposal. All waste disposal authorities are required to ensure that waste is moved up the hierarchy and that the potential is fully exploited before the next step down the hierarchy is brought into play.
The Proximity Principle requires that waste facilities should be located as close as possible to the source of the material.
The Duty to Co-operate requires planning authorities to co-operate to explore opportunities for cross county border solutions.
CPRE Gloucestershire Policy
Gloucestershire Policy is:
- All proposals for new facilities should be based on realistic assumptions on the key drivers rather than simple projections from past trends
- We believe that the risks to the environment of over-providing capacity are greater than ultimately ending up with a short term greater amount of waste going to landfill
- We support the principle of the waste hierarchy
- Gloucestershire should set a target of being a UK exemplar of best practice on recycling rates with a target of not less than 70% by 2020
- The proximity principle should apply
- We are technology neutral in that we do not espouse a particular waste management technology over any other
- We are not opposed in principle to incineration with power generation and CHP
- Conditions attached to renewal of licenses should be improved on renewal
- For major new facilities the application of Best Available Technology should be demanded.
Link to pdf of the policy statement