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Fly tipping extreme

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Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has publicly spoke out about the thinking behind landfill bans and reassures councils and skip hire companies alike that the definition of municipal waste changes.

We’ve all been having problems getting to grips with new changes regarding governmental reforms over waste over the past few years and it’s not about to get any easier. Local authorities and waste management companies look set to have to grapple with landfill bans being imposed for different waste streams on different dates over the years to 2020.

The Environment secretary has confirms these landfill bans will take place. Benn’s agenda is to reduce the amount of waste materials from being sent to landfill.

Ahead of a consultation on the bans – which could be issued in February 2010 – Mr Benn described them as an “encouragement” and as a form of “mutual support” for the landfill tax.

Asked whether landfill bans were Defra’s cause célèbre for waste at present and whether they were really necessary in light of the rising landfill tax, the Secretary of State said: “We are trying to make progress on a number of fronts. As I said at my ‘World Without Waste’ speech in October, why do we put all these valuable products in landfill?

“For me it is about the two things supporting each other which is why we have got to the point of landfill bans, they will mutually support each other so we can get to where we want to be. Landfill tax has had an impact, but it is about thinking ahead, being ambitious. It does not make sense to put food waste or wood or plastic or glass or aluminium cans or tin cans into landfill.”

Part of the reason behind Mr Benn’s thinking is thought to be the fact that the UK still sends 50% of household waste to landfill as well as a large percentage of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste.

By banning materials from landfill, this will encourage further recycling, said Mr Benn. “By saying you are not going to stick this into landfill any more, then we need to find another way of dealing with it which will further support the way this material is recycled and build on what we have achieved already through the efforts of local authorities, and I pay tribute to them in responding to the landfill levy.”

The Secretary of State singled out food waste as one of the key target areas for future landfill bans, arguing that it makes no sense to landfill this “for obvious reasons, both because of the methane and the fact that you have a fantastic alternative which is either composting or producing renewable energy.”

And, he suggested that all local authorities ought to be collecting food waste at least by 2020, although a precise date will be consulted on. Mr Benn remarked:  “If some local authorities can collect food waste, why can’t all local authorities collect food waste?”

And, he emphasised the logic of a landfill ban in the case of food waste which will help encourage new infrastructure such as anaerobic digestion (AD). “By definition, I take you back to landfill bans; this is a policy that has a number of benefits for clearly when we get to the point that food no longer goes into landfill clearly every local authority is going to have to find another way of dealing with it.”

Mr Benn dismissed industry claims that AD developers are finding it hard to get funding for projects and said: “We have done a huge amount on AD as this is an emerging technology with enormous potential. We have doubled the incentives under ROCs from the first of April last year, Feed-in-Tariffs will come in, there is £10m for the demonstrator projects, and the EA has said digestate will not be classified as a waste and the AD task force is working with the industry.  Frankly it is a technology which is waiting to take off because all the building blocks are in place.

Is nothing sacred? Somehow, thieves have stolen a council skip placed to help residents get rid of household waste left uncollected because of the snow.

The large yellow skip was placed at Shaw, north Manchester so people living in side roads which waste trucks had not able to reach could empty their rubbish. But when residents arrived on Monday they discovered it had been stolen over the weekend.

Cllr Mark Alcock, environment spokesman, said: “Whoever took this skip would have needed a specialist truck to take it away.

“We are currently checking nearby CCTV cameras to see if such a vehicle has been seen in the area.

“If the thieves are tracked down then they will be prosecuted.

“It is very disappointing. People are doing so much to help others while some selfish individuals are helping themselves.”

Sad times. Whoever did this had access to a skip wagon – so there will be a skip firm somewhere who is responsible for this. Guys, let’s clean up skip hire and get rid of these cowboys who continue to dirty the name of our industry.

Just a quick word of congrats to Skip Hire companies across the UK. Although some places were hit by the sudden snowfall than others, I was heartened to see plenty of skip wagons on the road regardless of the weather. In fact saw this lovely little pic of a skip covered in snow, and thought it was a good symbol of our hardwork throughout the bad weather. Well done guys!

Love him or hate him, blonde haired, bumbling, posho Boris Johnson wants to introduce a new scheme to the UK which rewards recycling efforts by handing out shopping vouchers to people.

Boris Johnson hopes the scheme rewards recycling households as he aims to cut the amount of rubbish going to landfill sites to zero within 15 years.

Johnson is backing a London-based trial of an American scheme called Recycle Bank, which gives householders shopping vouchers or donations to charity to the value of how much they recycle.

Johnson estimates a typical London household would make £14 a month under the scheme, one of a series of proposals contained in a draft municipal waste strategy.

Figures show the capital’s recycling rates lags behind both the rest of the UK and other international cities.

Johnson, who chairs the London Waste and Recycling Board, wants to save £90m per year through more recycling, better coordination and greater investment in less polluting technologies to either dispose of waste or convert it into a local source of energy.

Just 25% of the 4m tonnes of household waste generated each year by Londoners is recycled, with half going to landfill sites. The remainder goes to incinerators.

The cost of managing this waste is approximately £600m every year, with wide variations between boroughs’ recycling rates.

Johnson is writing to all London borough leaders to ask them to redouble their efforts in recycling and – with landfill rates set to increase from current associated costs of around £245m to £307m by 2013 – reminding them of pressure on future council tax bills if they fail to act.

The Tory mayor believes the carrot, rather than the stick, should be among the strategies applied to improve London’s ranking by rewarding those who opt to recycle rather than imposing penalties on those who don’t.

The American Recycle Bank scheme is in line with Conservative interest in the “nudge” theories of American sociologists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and has so far been adopted by Tory-led Windsor and Maidenhead council.

Other incentives to reduce landfill include schemes to encourage shoppers to bring their own reusable bags in an attempt to turn London into Britain’s first plastic bag-free city in time for the Olympics in 2012.

The mayor wants the capital to be recycling at least 45% of its municipal waste (which includes street litter, grass cuttings and some waste from small businesses as well as household waste) by 2015, rising to 60% by 2031, sending “zero municipal waste” directly to landfill by 2025, with any residue from other waste processing being banned from landfill by 2031.

Check out the February 2010 edition

In this issue the Legal Eagle advises us to be cautious this winter especially on sites! Our Enviroman gets his teeth into politicians and red tape that is produced  (is it one of our greatest exports?)  and the Garbage Guru talks screens and fines!

Nice winter skip chick and plenty of hunks add a bit of colour to the pages

Oh and will landfills get banned?

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Remember Terry Sandham, the Yorkshire skip hire pigeon fancier (try saying that after a few shandies) who was being denied planning permission for his palatial pigeon loft?

Well, he won the court battle (yay!) but has lost some award winning pigeons since (boo!).

The  bad news follows as Sandham has now reported the theft of dozens of his prized pigeons.

Terry Sandham, 69, believes thieves broke into his luxury pigeon loft in Guiseley last week, making off with up to 30 birds worth at least £1,000.

As reported in The Skip last year, Mr Sandham ruffled the feathers of council bosses by building the palatial 18ft by 5ft loft on green belt land.

But the skip hire boss later won a planning appeal and was awarded legal costs from Leeds City Council, which could total up to £40,000.

Almost one year later, he is still waiting for the money – and after the added stress of the pigeon theft, he said he finally wanted some “peace”.

The businessman, who runs Aireborough Waste Traders, said,  ”I felt sick when I realised what had happened.

“Those birds are massive part of my life; I’ve had pigeons since I was an eight-year-old lad. At least 10 have gone, but numbers in other parts of the loft have gone down as well.

“I’ve been ill over Christmas and this just adds to it. If they’re released, there’s a chance they may fly back, but I’m not holding out much hope.”

The pigeon loft, complete with windows and patio doors, was built in 2006 as a replacement for Mr Sandham’s former crumbling loft on the same land.

Neighbours described it as “blot on the landscape”, but he was eventually granted retrospective planning permission and appealed against the extra costs. However, he has yet to see any of the money, which was initially estimated at £20,000.

The sum may now have increased to £40,000 due to the ongoing legal wrangle, which has lasted for more than three years.

Mr Sandham added: “If I owed the council money, they’d be chasing after me and taking me to court. But when it’s the other way round, they bury their heads.”

The stolen pigeons, which shared the loft with around 100 others, were taken between Thursday night and Friday morning. Mr Sandham has offered a £500 reward for the safe return of the birds, which are mostly of the Leen Boers variety.

Terry, sorry to hear of the latest bad news. We hold some hope that those birdies will fly home soon. We’ll keep an eye in the skies for you. Good luck.

A land owner of a waste operation site who failed to turn up to court nine times has been prosecuted by the council for excessive noise and made to pay nearly £10,000.

Slough Borough Council served a noise abatement notice on May 8, 2008 on Amrik Johal, owner of Johal Skip Hire, a waste transfer site at Colnbrook bypass.

On December 18, 2009, he was found guilty at Maidenhead Magistrates Court of all five noise offences and fined £1,000 for each offence and ordered to pay £4,911 costs.

He was also prosecuted by the Environment Agency for operating without a licence.

Johal’s case was heard in his absence after he failed to turn up for the tenth time, owing to apparent ill health. He failed to submit medical evidence to support his absence on this occasion, so the case went ahead without him.

The Skip mag really fails to see why people carry on breaking the rules. How long do they thing they can get away with it?