ISWA is very happy to announce the launch of the Knowledge Base.

The Knowledge Base has been developed to keep you, as a valued ISWA member, up to date on the latest information relating to all aspects of waste on the global scale.

The Knowledge Base is a digital library loaded with hundreds of documents covering 18 different topics of waste management, available at your fingertips on the ISWA website.

Whether you are searching for a Guidance Document on Waste Management practices, the latest Technical Paper compiled by one of ISWA’s Working Groups, a Scientific Paper from an ISWA Conference, Training Material or easy access to key Weblinks, it can be found in the ISWA Knowledge Base.

The ISWA Communication Award 2011 is now open for submissions. This award has been designed to honour excellent Waste Communication Campaigns that increase public awareness and promote sustainable waste management. Nominations can be submitted until 15 June 2011 by any organisation, for a Communication Campaign fulfilling these criteria.

As the award is open for participation for both ISWA members and non-ISWA members, please submit your nomination and/or forward this invitation at your discretion.

Submissions can be uploaded here, with the following information in English:

• A short description and objectives of the campaign
• Some PDF or/and multimedia examples of the nominated campaign’s communication material (maximum 5 files with maximum 10 MB each)

Looking forward to receiving your submissions!

For further information, please view the Terms of Reference and the Guidelines for Submission.

ISWA was invited to the 1st SWEEP-Net Forum on Integrated Solid Waste Management, which took place from 12 to 14 April 2011 in Beirut, Lebanon.

At this excellently organised event, 130 delegates from 16 mainly Arab countries worked together for an efficient and integrated solid waste management in the Mashreq and Maghreb region.

During the three conference days, 25 presentations gave a comprehensive picture of the regional situations, best practices and future perspectives. Four regional working groups, each one composing of at least ten experts, were launched.

ISWA seeks an Office Manager/Project Assistant to join the General Secretariat team at our headquarters located in Vienna, Austria, to assist the other members of the General Secretariat team with member support service, administrative tasks, proof reading and project management. The position offered is part-time with the potential to develop into a full-time position.

Skills and Attributes:

• English native speaker, very good German language skills
• Must be well organised, detail-oriented with strong follow-up skills and the ability to work simultaneously on multiple projects
• Self-starter with strong interpersonal skills, able to handle responsibilities with minimal supervision, and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment with fixed deadlines
• Communication skills and social competence
• Efficient and goal oriented
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office is required
• Knowledge or interest in Waste/Natural Resource Management is desirable
• This position may entail light travel

Interested applicants are asked to send their application letter and CV to: hkoller@iswa.org by 31 May 2011.

The Municipal Sector Plan – Part 1 is intended to help deliver sustainable development in Wales through the creation of a resource efficient economy. This goes far beyond landfill diversion and high recycling and it is very important that all stakeholders understand and embrace this concept. Wales needs to reduce its overall consumption of resources and to source and use resources in a way that is equitable and ethical. Where waste is produced it should be prepared for reuse or recycled using closed loop methods in order that ecological and carbon footprint reductions are optimised.

To accompany the Municipal Sector Plan, the Welsh Government have also published the Collections Blueprint that outlines a collection system (kerbside sort), which are considered to be the most cost effective and deliver the best sustainable development outcomes.

• To download the final version of the Municipal Sector Plan – Part 1
  please click here
• To download the Collections Blueprint, please click here

The Scottish Government has published details of how it plans to meet the country's statutory annual greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. Environment and Climate Change Minister Roseanna Cunningham said that the report would 'form the backbone of action to reduce emissions over the next decade'.

The report, Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting the Emissions Reductions Targets 2010 – 2022 asserts that Scotland is on track to meet its target of a 42 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, but that the EU and UK must set tougher targets in line with global climate change need.

The report is required under Section 35 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act to set out proposals and policies for meeting annual emissions reductions targets from 2010 to 2022, and follows Low Carbon Scotland: The Draft Report on Proposals and Policies, which was published in November 2010 and was subject to a 60-day period of Parliamentary consideration.

• Copies of the report are available from the Scottish Government's website
• For a Technical Appendix setting out the detailed emissions and cost calculations underpinning the Report on Proposals and Policies is available from, please click here

Please note that the Commission will test the draft methodology by carrying out a series of pilot projects.

The Commission invites organisation interested in the development of LCA methodology to participate on voluntary basis in this testing phase.

You can find background information including objectives, timelines and applications at the following links:

• Product Environmental Footprint
• Corporate Environmental Footprint
  

Different aspects of recycling policies and the actual recycling of waste achieved in European Countries are analysed in a new report from the European Environment Agency and its Topic Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ETC/SCP). The objective of the report is to provide a classification of recycling policy measures in relation to the actual recycling levels achieved in the EU Member States and in the European Environment Agency member countries.

The report covers the following five waste streams: packaging waste, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), municipal solid waste, biodegradable municipal waste and construction and demolition waste. A number of findings are developed in the report. The report's data work was finalised by February 2010.

For copies of the report Europe as a Recycling Society: European Recycling Policies in relation to the actual recycling achieved, please click here

Current high prices of food, oil and many other resources are indications of increasing scarcity. This scarcity, however, has little to do with stock depletion. Badly functioning markets and wrong policy reactions play a particularly important role. This is the conclusion by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency as drawn in their analysis Scarcity in a Sea of Plenty? Global Resource Scarcities and Policies in the European Union and the Netherlands.

For most resources, global stocks will be sufficient to meet increasing demand, over the coming decades. However, these stocks are not equally distributed over the world; they tend to be located in a limited number of countries. This causes an increasing European dependency on imports, which, in turn, feeds the fear of a decrease in security of supply.

A gasification plant in the Isle of Wight, UK, has become the first waste fuelled gasification or pyrolysis plant to receive Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

Bioenergy News reports that under the 2003 Renewable Obligation Order (ROO), the plant receives ROCs for each megawatt hour our electricity it generates from the renewable portion of waste (typically more than 60%).

Ofgen granted full accreditation after an agreement was made about the fuel measurement system, including the measurement of the biomass content of the fuel and the syngas gross calorific value (GCV).

Energos, whose technology is installed at the plant, received the ROCs for an initial period from October to December 2010, and will continue to be issued by Ofgen in accordance with the regulations. The auction price for ROCs approached £50 in March 2011.

Nick Dawber, managing director of Energos says: 'Now we have reached agreement with Ofgem and are receiving ROCs, we can press ahead with developing several small-scale projects in the UK. Planning consent has been granted for seven more energy recovery facilities using Energos technology. These are community sized plants that can supply both heat and/or electricity from non-recyclable and non-hazardous municipal solid waste and commercial waste streams.'

"We must both save the climate and still be able to transport ourselves around. It is therefore incredibly important that Sweden focuses on the development of second-generation biofuels, which will contribute to reducing the climate impact of the transport sector," says Minister for Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson.

The GoBioGas project is a major initiative for the production of biogas through thermal gasification of biofuels and forestry waste.

The gasification plant is to be constructed in two phases, where the first is intended to be operational by the end of 2012 and the second following an evaluation of the first phase. The project is being run as a partnership between Göteborg Energi and E.ON

The UK's first ReFood anaerobic digestion plant is taking shape at PDM's headquarters in Doncaster. The £12m plant is using a mix of expertise from UK and European construction and anaerobic digestion specialists in the build process.

RecyclingPortal.eu reports that the Doncaster plant will be able to recycle around 45,000 tonnes of food waste each year and produce 2.8 MWh of renewable electricity and heat helping to provide a sustainable solution for some of the millions of tonnes of food waste generated across the UK food chain each year.

ReFood offers all business across the food chain, from large industrial food processors to small fish and chips shops, a unique, high quality, food waste collection and recycling service. ReFood's 'bin swap' offering means that a full bin will be exchanged for a cleaned and sanitised one at

The Publicly Available Specification 100 (BSI PAS 100) for composted materials, sponsored by WRAP and developed in conjunction with the Association for Organics Recycling (AFOR), is now available.

BSI PAS 100 is part of WRAP's ongoing work to develop a dynamic market for quality compost products. WRAP has worked with AFOR and the Growing Media Association to develop compost specifications and guidelines tailored to the industries.

The specification was prepared and published by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and built on the existing AFOR 'Standards for Compost' scheme.

It improves confidence in composted materials among end-users, specifiers and blenders, and helps producers differentiate products that are safe, reliable and of high performance. AFOR has adopted BSI PAS 100 as the specification that composted materials must meet in order to achieve the independently verified AFOR certification and use of the logo.

BSI PAS 100 was developed following extensive consultation across the compost industry. It only covers biodegradable materials that have been kept separate from non-biodegradables, and applies to composted materials produced at centralised, on-farm and community composting facilities. It does not extend to end products of home composting for self-use.

Green groups in Europe say the European Union's new goals for dealing with the bloc's growing mountain of electronic waste are timid, according to UPI.

Environment ministers from member countries decided that by 2016, each country should be required annually to collect 45 percent of the average weight of electric goods in their national markets, Deutsche Welle reported Friday.

Environmental advocates called the new requirements a watering down of proposals put forward by the European Parliament last month that called for EU countries to process 85 percent of their e-waste by 2016.