The meeting room we arranged for the event was nearly too small. One week before the Conference took place, we had to put “fully booked” on the registration webpage.

One hundred and thirty experts from the waste and resource management sector, coming from 25 different countries, gathered in Vienna, Austria, on 23 and 24 April 2011 to attend the 2nd ISWA Beacon Conference on Waste Prevention and Recycling. We were nearly able to double the attendance of the first of these conferences held in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, last year!

An exclusive panel of speakers, including senior representatives from UNEP, EU Commission and the European Environmental Agency, assessed policy instruments and practices for waste prevention; contemplated environmental impacts of production and consumption; took an in-depth look into strategies on resource management and into new recycling technologies.

ISWA is happy to announce that 12 projects have been successful in the award of funding under the ISWA Project Grant recent call for Papers.

Thirty-three project applications were received in total, of which many were of a very high quality, making the final selection a challenging task.

The applications came from a wide scope of countries, such as Nigeria, Denmark, Brazil, Singapore, Argentina, Netherlands, Portugal and from all of ISWA entity’s, i.e. Working Groups, Organisational Members, National Members, RDNS and Individual Members.

The applications covered many aspects of Waste Management, the most popular themes being Biological Treatment of Waste, Recycling & Waste Minimisation, Energy Recovery and Climate Change.

For further information, please visit www.iswa.org

On 6 June 2011, approximately 70 people gathered from 13 different countries at the European Economic and Social Committee Headquarters in Brussels to listen to presentations on the Future of Waste Management and Climate Change in Europe.

Twelve speakers from ISWA and other partner organisations such as the EC, FEAD, EEA and IMPEL delivered the insightful and engaging presentations. The key themes, besides Climate Change, included Waste Prevention & Recycling and the Trafficking of Waste.

Although it was promising to hear that a considerable amount has been achieved with respect to recycling across Europe, and that overall improvements have been made in enforcement against illegal shipments of waste, there is still far to go in both these areas, particularly with respect to the latter.

Following the morning’s discussion, with 25 ISWA members expressing interest in the establishment of an ISWA EU Network, this type of event is likely to continue in the future.

Such meetings are seen to provide a valuable opportunity not only for networking, but also for ISWA to share with the European Commission its expertise on waste management from a global perspective; and conversely, the opportunity for ISWA members to hear about the situation in Europe from the proverbial “horse’s mouth”.

Plastic is a relatively cheap, durable and versatile material. Plastic products have brought benefits to society in terms of economic activity, jobs and quality of life. Plastics can even help reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in many circumstances, even in some packaging applications when compared to the alternatives.

This report describes trends in plastic waste generation and management, develops a baseline scenario, presents five policy options that could change that scenario and analyses the most promising three of these in more detail. Plastic waste generation is set to continue growing and the development of new materials continues apace. Bioplastics are growing extremely rapidly but from a very small base, and further research into lifecycle environmental impacts is needed.

Activities by the United Nations in 2009 caused the emission of a total of 1.7 million tonnes of the greenhouse gases, which are blamed for global warming and harmful effects on the environment and human health, the world body said in a new report.

The report, Moving Towards a Climate Neutral UN, details the greenhouse gas emissions for 52 UN institutions, covering 200,000 employees. It is published as part of ongoing efforts to reduce the UN's carbon footprint.

More than 50 per cent – 4.1 tonnes per capita – of the UN emissions are from air travel, making staff movement the biggest challenge for the Organisation in reducing its overall carbon footprint, the report points out. About 37 per cent of emissions are from buildings and 13 per cent from vehicles.

In a foreword to the report, prepared by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states that improving the UN's in-house sustainability performance will make the world body more efficient, more effective and less exposed to risk.

The report provides a progress update on implementation of the UN's Climate Neutral Strategy, approved the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB) in October 2007, committing all agencies, funds and programmes to move towards climate neutrality within the wider context of greening the UN.

• Copies of the report Moving Towards a Climate Neutral UN can be downloaded from the UN's website
• CLICK HERE for a summary version of the report

A consultation document has been issued by the UK Government's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) seeking views on whether regulations should be introduced to make it mandatory for some UK companies to report on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or whether the Government should continue to encourage measuring and reporting of GHG emissions on a voluntary basis.

Section 85 of the Climate Change Act 2008 requires the Government to make regulations, under the Companies Act 2006, by 6 April 2012 requiring the directors' report of a company to include information about GHG emissions as is specified in regulations, or to lay a report before Parliament explaining why no such regulations have been made. No decision has yet been made.

This consultation aims to inform Ministers' decision on whether to introduce regulations. The consultation document considers four different options, including a voluntary approach, designed to promote more widespread and consistent reporting by companies of GHG emissions.

Views are sought on the questions that are asked at the end of the document on the four options presented and on the potential requirements of mandatory reporting, if introduced.

Copies of the relevant paperwork listed below can be downloaded from Defra's website

The EU Commission's representative in charge of the Landfill Directive, Jose Jorge Diaz del Castillo, has confirmed the intention to propose a phase-out of biodegradable waste going to landfill by 2020 – 2025.

Intended to prevent or reduce the adverse effects of landfill on the environment, the 1999 Landfill Directive requires that no more than 35% of 1995 biowaste levels should be landfilled by 2016, reports Waste Management World, citing CEWEP.

The Commission's intention to end the landfilling of biowaste completely was made during a recent workshop on landfilling organised by the European Federation of Waste Management and Environmental Services (FEAD) in Prague, where Castillo reported on the non-compliance of Member States with the existing diversion targets as set in the Directive.

As the Commission services are currently gathering and analysing the relevant data, Castillo fears the possibility that several countries may not have met the 2009 and 2010 targets.

Figures released show that Scotland's local authorities recycled nearly 38 per cent of the municipal waste they collected in 2010.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) calculates the figures from data provided by local authorities on behalf of the Scottish Government, and releases the figures four times a year.

In 2010, 37.8 per cent of municipal waste collected by local authorities was recycled or composted, compared to 36 per cent in 2009.

Also revealed are further drops in:

• total amount of municipal waste collected by local authorities (down 85,942 tonnes to 3,129,821)
• municipal waste going to landfill (down 108,306 tonnes to 1,850,716)
• the tonnage of biodegradable municipal waste, such as garden and food waste, which is being sent to landfill (down 67,749 tonnes to 1,109,689)

Figures for every one of Scotland's 32 local authorities are available on SEPA's website, along with the figures for the whole of Scotland.

Foreigners in Germany sometimes express bewilderment at the country's recycling system. A majority of German households keep their garbage separated by paper, packaging, glass, compost and conventional waste.

( ... ) One particular item of trash that leaves many newcomers baffled: the wax-coated cardboard milk carton. Does it go in the blue bin for paper? Or the yellow bin for plastic? Perhaps it belongs in the normal waste bin?

The answer is simple, according to Berlin's public waste-management facility BSR. "Milk cartons and other so-called Tetra Paks bear the Green-Dot logo and therefore belong in the yellow bin," explains spokeswoman Sabine Thümler.

Mystery solved. But the system that has given Germany the highest recycling rate in Europe is about to receive an overhaul, potentially complicating things further with yet another bin.

The German government is working on a new framework for waste management in an effort to increase its recycling targets and bring the system into line with EU law. As part of the proposed legislation, an additional recycling bin may be introduced for "materially similar non-packaging."

The National Community Wood Recycling project (NCWRP) has launched the first online shop for furniture and timber products created by member organisations across the UK.

The recycled products sold at the Next Door Wood Store (www.nextdoorwoodstore.org.uk) – which range from unique tables and chairs for the home, to bird boxes for the garden – are handmade by a network of 23 social enterprises around the UK.

NCWRP and its members work with national building firms to divert waste wood from landfill, and ensure that the maximum amount is put back to reuse, either by selling it back to the public as DIY material or as timber products. What can't be reused is split for firewood and kindling and only a very small amount remaining is sent for chipping. At the same time, they provide placements for volunteers - people with learning difficulties, addiction problems, ex-offenders or others who have trouble getting back into 'the system'.

A weekly food waste recycling scheme for Edinburgh is being trialled across 20,000 households in the city.

Waste Management World reports that Cheshire-based Palm Recycling has added the trial for Edinburgh City Council, as part of its recently awarded interim contract to provide additional kerbside recycling services to 135,000 homes in the city.

It is planned that once the food waste pilot has been evaluated, the service will be rolled out across the city with all residents able to recycle food waste, as well as plastic bottles and batteries, with the aim of increasing recycling rates in Edinburgh to 75% by 2020.

According to the company, households in the Scottish capital have been recycling a range of materials for several years through its services, yet food, plastic bottles and batteries have thus far not been collected. These recyclable products make up a substantial proportion of the household rubbish previously sent to landfill, costing the council more than £7 million per year in tax.

More than a tenth of the world's palm kernel meal, a by-product of palm oil, is fed to British pets and livestock.

The Guardian reports that British cats, dogs, cows, pigs and even goldfish are helping destroy the rainforests of south-east Asia. A new study for the government finds that more than a tenth of all the world's palm kernel meal – a lucrative by-product of the production of palm oil – is fed to British animals.

Palm oil is an ingredient in an estimate third of all products on supermarket shelves, from biscuits and margarine to shampoo and confectionery. And it turns up on garage forecourts in biodiesel. Britain imports more than half a million tonnes of the oil a year. But the study for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) reports that Britain imports even more palm kernel meal, mostly for animal feed.

The report found that while retailers and manufacturers of branded foods are rushing to buy certified "sustainable" palm oil that does not destroy the rainforests, animal feed manufacturers show "little awareness of sustainability". British imports of sustainable palm kernel meal are precisely zero.

A new report by the UK's National Centre for Biorenewable Energy, Fuels and Materials, reveals that using crops in anaerobic digestion (AD) is vital for the technology to make a meaningful contribution to UK renewable energy targets.

AD is the process where microorganisms break down organic material to produce a gas, which can be used to generate electricity or heat buildings. On-farm AD plants can operate using just slurry and manure, but this research shows digesters operate more efficiently when crops, like grass and maize, are also added.

The modelling was carried out using the NNFCC's AD calculator, and examined a range of farm sizes, slurry to crop ratios and crop types.

At the medium-scale, the most financially attractive option was the slurry-only model, followed by a slurry to crop ratio of 70 to 30. However, slurry-only systems generate far less energy; by using a modest amount of crop material (30 per cent), an AD plant can increase energy output tenfold for only three times the capital cost.

Using a larger proportion of crop material in a digester will increase gas production, but such systems may require more expensive equipment and high amounts of water to allow the microorganisms to break down the drier feedstock; this should be taken into account in economic forecasting, concludes the report.

The research is now being fed back to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change to support policy development on AD.

European Plastics News reports that as part of the project, DSD will analyse marine litter collected by fishers in the plastics recovery plant of its Systec Plastics subsidiary in Hörstel, Germany.

The project will also involve examining whether recycling the waste is possible, and if not, finding a safe way of getting rid of the litter.

DSD chairman Stefan Schreiter said: "A good disposal structure already helps to limit the amoung of waste coming from the land into the sea. With our project we now want to further reduce the amount of waste in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea".

DSD is working with the NABU nature protection association so that fishers will help remove waste from the sea and to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way when they return to harbour. This will be done with use of free-of-charge containers in the harbours, meaning the waste can be separately collected and identified.

The Baltic harbours of Burgstaaken (Fehmarn) and Heiligenhafen have joined the project on a pilot basis for the Baltic region.

DSD estimates that around 20,000 tonnes of waste in the North Sea alone each year and that a large amount of the Baltic is already heavily contaminated by waste, with "dramatic ecological consequences", such as fish and mussels becoming burdened by "micro plastic".

While fishers have also been complaining about contaminated catches and damaged nets, DSD says that local authorities have been spending millions of euros to clean beaches and coastlines.

For the full story, please visit European Plastics News

Ireland's Minister for the Environment, Community & Local Government, Mr. Phil Hogan, T.D., has launched a consultation process with both industry stakeholders and the public on the operation of a possible packaging levy.

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to drive a waste reduction programme as part of the overall policy in the area of a sustainable waste. One of the possible elements of this waste reduction strategy is a levy on packaging.

The main issues which it is intended to examine in this consultation are as follows:

• the overall views by stakeholders on a packaging levy;
• how a packaging levy might be operated;
• international experiences of similar levies; and
• how a possible packaging levy might be structured in order to contribute to a reduction in packaging waste.

The Government invites comments specifically addressing these topics; although respondents are also free to comment on any other aspects of this issue.

The notice of this consultation is available on the Department's website

Although most strategic metal reserves are unlikely to run out over the coming decades, the Committee says that the perception of scarcity of certain minerals and metals may lead to increased speculation and volatility in price and supply.

Strategically important metals are vital to advanced manufacturing, low-carbon technologies and other growing industries and the Government should provide reliable information on potential resource risks in a coordinated and coherent way – something which, at present, may be lacking.

Maximising the recovery of materials from end-of-life products is crucial and a 'cradle to cradle' approach should be introduced in the UK, says the report. Despite a rate of 90% (by weight) metal recycling in the UK, it is of great concern that some strategic metals are likely to be lost in the 10% not being recycled.

CLICK HERE to download copies of the report Strategically important metals