Press Room
Waste must be recognised as a valuable economic resource
Nigel Mattravers, Director in the Government and Infrastructure
Advisory team at Grant Thornton comments on today's (5 November)
DEFRA Municipal Waste statistics:
"Today's decrease in the total amount of municipal waste collected
in the financial year 2008/09 from the previous year is encouraging
and continues the downward trend in volume of waste produced. The
increasing levels of recycling and composting is also a good sign.
The economic climate and slowdown in spending may have also played
a part in discouraging consumers from throwing things away and
encouraging reusing and recycling.
"Reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill and increasing
recycling will continue to remain high on the Government's agenda
in order to meet national and European targets and because the
electorate has become far more environmentally aware. The next push
should be a move to change mind-sets towards waste, from viewing it
as a burden to a commodity. The word 'waste' has a stigma attached
to it which does not do justice to its potential as a valuable
economic resource.
"Town planning also plays a vital part in local economies' ability
to recoup value from waste. Recycling and processing plants are big
operations and it is difficult to find sites to locate them. Only
by considering and planning infrastructure for waste as the Fourth
Utility will we truly harness its potential as a resource."