Waste Management Strategy - Professor C Coggins - Transcript - 10 January 2005

STATES OF JERSEY

SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

BLAMPIED ROOM, STATES BUILDING

WASTE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

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Present:   Deputy Phil Rondel (Review Chairman)

Senator Ted Vibert

Senator Jean Le Maistre

Deputy Rob Duhamel

Deputy Gerard Baudains

Deputy Bob Hill

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EVIDENCE FROM: PROFESSOR CHRIS COGGINS

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on

Monday, 10th January 2005 (10:55:21-- 11:56:23)

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(Digital Transcription by Marten Walsh Cherer Limited, Midway House, 27/29 Cursitor St., London, EC4A 1LT. Telephone: 020 7405 5010.  Fax:  020 7405 5026)

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DEPUTY RONDEL: I c a ll Professor Coggins.  Professor, before we start, I have to read you

the following notice. I know you will have read it a number of times, but it's a formality that has to be

gone through. It is important that you fully understand the conditions under which you are appearing at this hearing. You will find a printed copy of the statement that I am about to read to you on the table in front of you.

S h a d ow Scrutiny Panels have been established by the States to create opportunities for

training States Members and Officers in developing new skills in advance of the proposed changes of government. During the shadow period, the Panel has no statutory powers and the proceedings at public hearings are not covered by Parliamentary privilege. This means that anybody participating, whether a Panel Member or a person giving evidence, is not protected from being sued or prosecuted for anything said during the hearings. The Panel would like you to bear this in mind when answering questions and to ensure that you understand that you are fully responsible for any comments you make.

P ro f e ssor, will you please give us your qualifications, if I may?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: T h a n k you, Chair. I have a degree in geography, a PhD in mining

geography while I was looking at resource issues in terms of decision-making in location of mining activity. For the last 20 years I have been involved in waste management and I am now a Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Waste Management. I still remain a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, incorporated with the Institute of British Geographers.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   T h a n k you.  Senator Vibert ?

SENATOR VIBERT: Ye s . Could you give the Panel some indication of recent work that you've

done in terms of waste management strategies for either councils or UK authorities? PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ye s , Chair. Through the Chair, I started in waste 20 years ago and in

the UK and, at that time, it was very much a case of disposal, disposal through landfill or

disposal through incineration. Much of the decision-making, many of the decision-makers at

national and local level, were civil engineers and mechanical engineers.

I n th e last 20 years that has changed in the UK and now the focus is on waste management. We are currently going through a situation in the UK, where guidance on waste management strategies is now coming out thick and fast and some of these reports came out in

December. They follow on from guidance on municipal waste management strategies published by

DEFRA in 2001 and by the Welsh Assembly Government in 2002. In connection with those, then I have been involved in preparing a draft waste management strategy for Yorkshire/Humber and the draft waste management strategy for Sheffield. Last year I was working with Wiltshire County Council on their strategy, with Tamworth District Council in the Midlands in their waste strategy and I am currently finishing off a review of municipal waste management strategies in Wales for the Welsh Assembly. That compliments a review that was done in England that was completed in the autumn, which I can provide copies of if anybody is interested. And another item which I was involved with last year was Hampshire. The County Council, the 11 districts and the two unitary authorities, they have been going through what is to some extent unique in the UK, in that they are putting together a minerals materials resource strategy, which includes minerals as well as waste. I was asked and I actually reviewed the whole process that Hampshire has been going through, which I can come back to if necessary in terms of their approach to engaging stakeholders, looking at options and they have spent a year doing that before they've even started thinking about putting a draft strategy on the table.

SENATOR VIBERT: C o u l d I ask you, you have actually been the consultant to this Panel, I

think, since August. You have attended most of our Scrutiny hearings and we have sent you all of the minutes of the various committees, especially the Waste Strategy Steering Group. You have obviously read those and studied them. I wondered if you could let the Panel know what your view is of the way in which this matter has been handled in Jersey?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: I t h in k, as I made the point at a previous meeting, the situation is

being dominated by a desire to replace the incinerator. That seems to have come through in both

the paperwork of the minutes of the meetings, that a new energy from waste plant had to be

commissioned by 1st January 2009. I was quite surprised that there is no mention in any of those

reports of the report that you sent me a little while ago, dated 25th September 1995, which I find

for the date is probably far more far reaching than any document in the UK of that date. SENATOR VIBERT: C a n I stop you there? That is the Deputy Matthews Report, I believe? PROFESSOR COGGINS: T h a t is the report on Waste Minimisation and Recycling Options for

Jersey. I find in the minutes there are references to "have to be a consultative process", which I find

surprising based on the discussions this morning, that that perhaps has not taken place in a way that would happen in the UK. There are references to "environmental impact assessment" and "health impact assessment", and both of those are now being replaced in Europe and in the UK by "strategic environmental assessment" and, in fact, in December, the Government in the UK came out quite clearly and said that EPO, for example, is no longer applicable for waste management strategies, that there has sustainability appraisals. So, again, the term "sustainable development" as a global driver, emanating out of the Johannesburg Summit, again is something which one would have expected to see some reference to in terms of providing an overview, despite the fact that Jersey, with its relationship with the UK or the EU, presumably sees itself as a member of the global community.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   S e n at or?

SENATOR VIBERT: Ye s . The set-up or the organisation of the Waste Strategy Steering Group,

you will remember the questions I put to Senator Syvret this morning about the way Guernsey had done it, where they had set up a panel of independent waste management experts headed by an independent lawyer that has looked at the Guernsey Waste Strategy and will be producing its report within the next couple of days. I wondered if you felt that that was an appropriate way of doing it, rather than have a panel of people with no experience of waste management who are either Health representatives, or Planning Department representatives, or Public Service Department representatives rather than waste management experts who are going to formulate our policy. I just wondered what your view was of what that set-up was.

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ag a i n, I preface my remarks by saying that obviously there are differences in the UK context and Jersey, but certainly in the UK, in my experience, decisions on

waste strategies now entail a far broader group of people involved in the discussions. The example that I referred to earlier, the Hampshire case, since November between November 2003 and December 2004, Hampshire arranged six public meetings, where they invited representatives from a wide range of stakeholders. They had over 100 people attending in each case, and that was used as a sounding board to gain ideas, to gain reactions and it involved the

waste management industry, industry, business sectors, NGOs, environmental groups, nature protection

and all sorts of different groups, all of which are now being regarded as essential under strategic and environmental assessment moves.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   T h a n k you.   Deputy Duhamel?

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: T h a n k you. I would like you to comment perhaps on a couple of the

changes -- I think you are well placed in your work to do this -- that have taken place within the

attitudes, if you like, which are being expressed in terms of waste management strategies. Is it

fair to say that the old ideas of treating waste management strategies as one of waste disposal are

being replaced by one of resource recovery, with the emphasis on materials separation and reuse,

and is it also true that the previous procurement processes which would lock municipal

authorities into 25 year plans is being researched and looked into and being replaced perhaps by

one which requires a more flexible approach and one which indeed doesn't specifically rely on a

particular technology solution but a range of integrated solutions? I wondered if you could

please perhaps comment on those that we can readily see taking place in the UK and in Europe

and elsewhere, moving waste management into these particular areas rather than the old ways. PROFESSOR COGGINS: It is a very large question, which I will try and pick out some key

themes from. One of them is obviously the big drivers in the UK are from Europe. So this is

something which is obviously slightly different in an overall context. But in Europe it is now

fairly certain that the Commission is moving away from what might be called end of life product

waste streams. We have had packaging, end of life vehicles, waste electrical and electronic

equipment, the Batteries Directive. They are moving away from those and at the moment --

there were meetings in November which I have got summary documents off -- there are two

thematic strategies which are coming out and which will be coming out in their final form next

year from Europe.

On e is a thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources. That is minerals, energy, water and the potential rôle of wastes as resources. There is also the thematic strategy on

the prevention and recycling of waste. That perhaps has probably a lot of potential for changing the mindset because it is, first of all, going to look at the definitions of waste in the Waste

Framework Directive. It is possible that the Waste Framework Directive will be amended so that when

waste ceases to be waste it will be clarified in law, which at the moment is causing a lot of problems. Secondly, the focus will be on materials rather than end of life product waste streams. So, for example, mention has been made this morning of plastics. At the moment, the focus with plastics might be plastics packaging or plastics from vehicles. In future, the focus will be on materials. As a result of that, then changes in the UK have been going on and I think there are three that I would draw your attention to.

On e that you are aware of is the work of the Waste and Resources Action Programme

("WRAP"), which is the principle behind it is to stimulate market development for wastes. They were set up four years ago. They had successive increases in funding and in broadening their remit. They originally started with plastics, wood, organics and paper. They have now been given the task of looking at aggregates and alternatives to aggregates as a raw material. In December, late November/early December, they have been given a number of other waste streams to look at in terms of markets. One of those is for tyres.

L in k e d with that you have the Waste Implementation Programme in the UK, which has

linked three of the programmes that are run by WRAP. The others are run by DEFRA. One of those is concerned with local authority support, and that is where a lot of the advice on strategies, on things like kerbside collection and things like how to maximise recycling behaviour and behaviour change.

B u t the one that is possibly going to have the most use is the New Technologies

Programme, which is to stimulate new technologies for dealing with, in that programme, biodegradable waste. But that has now been complimented by a DTi programme, which was launched on 30th November, which is concerned again with new technologies for dealing with waste. I think perhaps, as some people might say, it is better late than never, but now we have a concerted policy in the UK to look at market development on the one side and to look at alternative technologies on the other. This is where I think people are beginning to recognise the need to move away from the traditional disposal routes to ways of valorising waste.

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: In v ie w of the changes and the pace of change in waste management, in

particular in the UK, could you give us your opinion as to whether or not the strategy document as

prepared by Public Services has adequately addressed these issues?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: In m y considered opinion, I think, as a document, it would not fulfil

the guidelines on municipal waste strategies in the UK.

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: S o , t o be clear, it isn't, in your view, a strategy document?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: It i s n ot a strategy document in terms of having both a vision and a set

of plans and route maps to deliver that. Certainly I think the latest remit coming out of government is that municipal waste management strategies must in future be flexible. So we may have started to move away from the 25 year strategies with fixed commitments and fixed capital investment and certainly the guidance that came out in December formally recommends that local authorities must periodically review and take on board changes and, obviously, given the rate of technology changes and given the rate of market development, it is possible that these changes will accumulate and progress over the next five to ten years.

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: I t wa s actually mooted by the Chair of the Waste Strategy Steering

Group that, in putting together the Waste Strategy document, it should be for a 50 year period. I wonder if you would like to give us your comments on that particular notion?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Wh e n I ran an MSC in waste management at Luton, I used to talk

about the issues of forecasting and the issue of planning ahead and I used to say "What about back casting? Can you think what it was like 20 years ago", and obviously, at that time, as students they couldn't, but, with local authorities and with the people in the position who are putting together strategies, that is the sort of issue that I think has to be kept in mind, that the rate of change in the last 10, 20, 30, 50 years, everybody would probably agree that that rate of change is accelerated. So what will we be doing in 50 years time?

T h e examples that I often used to use with my students was to say "What was a

newspaper like 10 years ago? How heavy was the Sunday Times? How many supplements did it have? Will we have newspapers in 10 or 15 years time? Will the technology be such that you will simply have it on your wall based monitor and you'll print off what you want? You can read it on the wall when you want."

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: S o c ould it be said then that the aim of the chairman at the time was

totally unrealistic?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: I t h in k it would be a very brave person who could predict what it

would be like in 50 years time, in terms of what the waste stream would be like and what society would be like and what society will be expecting of them.

DEPUTY DUHAMEL: S o , in terms of planning then, what timescale should local authorities be

working to in order to achieve the flexibility and to be in accord with the pace of change that you have been discussing?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: T h e t hematic strategies that I mentioned earlier, they are talking about

a 25 year timescale, but, in talking about that, they are working on the assumption that there will be flexibility and reviews throughout that period rather than looking towards fixed goals at the end of that 25 year period. One example is a proposal that came from the Commission 12 months ago that progressively over that 25 year period we move from restrictions on biodegradable waste to landfill to a complete ban, to a complete ban on recyclables going into landfill, to a complete ban on hazardous waste going into landfill and, by the year 2025, only certain exceptional substances will be allowed into any landfill site and that was a view of one particular person in the Commission 12 months ago. It's a phased implementation, not simply saying "By the year 2025 we will be at a particular point."

DEPUTY RONDEL:   S e n at or Le Maistre?

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Ye s , Professor Coggins, in reviewing your experience in assisting in

the development of waste strategies in the UK, you covered quite a broad geographical area. Would you be able to comment as to whether there is, coming out of each of those studies, some kind of similarity in terms of conclusions in objectives, be they in recycling or be they in the final form of disposal of elements which cannot be recycled? Is there anything that one can gain from those studies which perhaps are able to be transferred into a small community situation such as ourselves or are they fairly spread and different in their conclusions?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: In a d dition to the work that I've been formally involved with, I also accessed copies of strategies when I find that they existed, so I have a large databank. There are

obviously differences and some may relate to local circumstances, the difference between, shall we say,

large metropolitan areas such as London and Sheffield and a rural area. But if you were to ask me are there any common themes, then the common themes are there and I think they are increasingly being reinforced by the plethora of government guidance that came out in December.

On e i s the issue that waste management is being managed rather than simply focusing on

disposal, so that the emphasis on the waste hierarchy, the emphasis on proximity principle and the emphasise increasingly on net self-sufficiency in terms that a local authority should manage its own waste responsibly.

S e c o ndly, there is the issue of data, that if you haven't got data on waste, on waste

composition, on past growth rates, on projected growth rates, how can you manage the waste? I think that is something which, again, has been recognised and, in September, the government launched a consultation paper for a three year data strategy, recognising the need that data for all waste streams needs to be collected in a systematic, regular way across the UK. Again, that is something which local authorities recognise and they do spend quite a lot of effort and money trying to put that data together.

T h ir d ly, there is the issue of what I call waste management structures. Increasingly that

debate is being focused at two levels. One is at the local authority level itself. Increasingly the focus is on co-ordination, is on joint strategies and getting rid of any unnecessary layers. So a report that is due out later this month from John Prescott's ministry, for example, is probably going to talk about giving parish councils more power in certain areas, but getting rid of one layer of local authorities in England. At the moment in England we have 43 waste disposal authorities, 260 waste collection authorities and 80 unitary authorities. In Wales there are just unitary authorities. So there is going to be, I think, a streamlining.

Ag a in , that is something which, in terms of the Jersey situation, again in the minutes and in the discussions that we have had previously, is the possibility for rationalising the administrative structure in Jersey. That, I think, links in with the other side of the waste management structure, which is the actual infrastructure that is put in. A lot of local authorities

in the UK moved towards 240 litre wheeled bins during the 1990s, only to find that they found the

amount of waste increasing and then having to run to stand still to meet recycling targets. In other words, people are now beginning to think "What is the infrastructure we put in? What size bins? What vehicles? What type of bring system we might employ?" and, again, rationalisation and co-ordination. The options appraisal I have touched on before.

T h e n the two final ones are, first of all, stakeholder engagement. I think it is recognised

in all local authorities -- and I think I say all local authorities -- in the UK that there has to be stakeholder engagement. That is the public. That is the local authority themselves. Senator Duhamel mentioned procurement, but it is the whole issue and, again, figures that were quoted. MORI did a survey of local authorities in England on what they purchased in terms of recycled materials, and the figures that came out were 20 pence in every £100, the argument being that if a local authority wishes to promote recycling, it should also be purchasing it and putting its own house in order. So behaviour change, the issue of businesses, getting businesses on board. This is why I think the document of 1995 is so interesting. It talks about discussions being held with the tourist industry and so on, and these are where, again in the UK, there is a lot of focus on waste minimisation by industry, design by industry, designing out.

M en t ion was made this morning about heavy metals. We have in the Waste Electrical

Directive the first Directive which says that certain substances will be banned. That, to me, is the first example of what might be called waste prevention in a qualitative sense, because if you stop materials going into products you stop them entering the waste stream and you stop them creating problems. Obviously it takes time and for a long period you are going to have this issue of orphan waste, of electrical goods containing heavy metals which are in people's attics and the garages which people haven't thrown away. But that means that you have to separate them. That, again, is what is happening.

I th i n k my view, in terms of picking up the issue of stakeholder engagement, is that it is top down, but also bottom up. If I was to sum it up in one word, it is "ownership" of the waste problem, "ownership" by the householders. If the householders go out and buy, they should recognise that they have a responsibility. Obviously there is mention in the various paperwork

about plastic bag taxes -- Ireland has brought that in -- and some people argue that that is a little bit

looking at symptoms rather than the real issues, but, in a way, it's trying to get across the issue of ownership.

If i t h adn't been for what is likely to happen in May in the UK, it is almost certain that a

bill going through Parliament at the moment, the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill, would have given local authorities powers to introduce charging in some way for waste. That has now been watered down, but it is likely that if the present Government is re-elected, I would see some form of charging of householders for waste being brought in at an early stage because that is the only way that people perhaps can see.  People argue that it is a stealth tax, that it is a retrograde step, but I think the argument that I would make (and I can provide documentation) is that more people now are saying that it should be based on incentives, incentives to recycle and penalties if you don't recycle.

Yo u may be familiar that last week Barnet in London has now agreed at a council level

that anybody who does not anybody who persistently does not recycle will be fined. That is, again, a very novel idea, but, again, perhaps that is the extreme. It is not a fine that will come overnight. There will be visits. There will be letters. There will be discussions. But if they are persistent in not participating in recycling, then their responsibility will be flagged up. I think that is an issue which, to me, is something which is beginning to be recognised across the UK. It came up earlier on, the talk about fiscal measures. The whole issue about fiscal measures has to be and is being addressed in the UK.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   De p u ty Baudains?

DEPUTY BAUDAINS: T h a n k you, Mr Chairman. You referred earlier to a flexible approach

being required towards waste management. I presume by this what you mean is that waste disposal is moving away from one solution -- incineration in our case -- towards a solution that contains several processes, such as composting and recycling and whatever, which obviously have the benefits of reducing the amount of ash and flue cleaning and all that which is required in incineration. How soon do you think Jersey could move towards a greater recycling and waste minimisation programme?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: I t h in k there are two strands to that question. One is that, with a

commitment to initiate behaviour change, it can be done fairly quickly, but it means that money has to be spent, a programme of education published and the infrastructure. The point I was making earlier about Barnet fining people, they are not fining them based on any simplistic notion; they are providing them with the facility, they are providing them with the education, they are providing them with the publicity, they are trying to guide their behaviour and they are then saying "if you don't change your behaviour, then this is what will happen." So I think it is a publicity campaign and, at the end of the day, publicity, yes, if you do it professionally it will cost money. At the same time it's a lot less than perhaps putting in very expensive capital equipment. But, yes, the issue of flexibility is, I think, increasingly being seen as a mix of options within the waste hierarchy and potentially . and this is where, again, one has to be careful. I have mentioned the new technologies, but there is the potential that the new technologies will offer smaller scale options as opposed to the traditional, conventional, large landfills or large incinerators, which, once they are in place, you then have the problem that you have to keep feeding them unless they are built in a modular system and the modular system is capable of being switched on and switched off, which obviously can create problems in other places.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   S e n at or Vibert ?

SENATOR VIBERT: Ye s , I just wondered. You received the statistics from our Public Services

Department in all the information which we provided to you, and I am sure you will have noticed that there is 32,000 tonnes not actually broken down into categories. I just wondered what you think of the kind of statistics that we have to make a judgment, whether you think they are satisfactory.

PROFESSOR COGGINS: M y p rofessional view would be no, and I made that point, I think, at an earlier meeting, where I mentioned the use of waste composition data from local authorities in

the UK. In my view, those authorities were not necessarily comparable with Jersey. The dates were not necessarily compatible with the present time and, yes, if you have a figure which is unclassified, what is in it? What could it be used for? It would raise questions, and the example

that is often quoted in the UK is the Environment Agency carried out surveys of commercial and

industrial waste in the UK in the late 1990s, and in their statistics they quote for each region in the UK an average of 27% of the waste being general and biodegradable. To try and plan for that is impossible. People have found it so particularly -- and again the contrast and the particular driver in the UK -- when you have 27% being general and biodegradable and we have a Landfill Directive which is forcing us to reduce and divert biodegradable waste and we don't know what that figure is in commercial industrial waste.

SENATOR VIBERT: Ye s . If I could put to you the quote from Babtie Fichtner's own report to

the Public Services Committee and I will just ask for your comment on it: "Good data on waste are essential, providing the planning and to estimate the likely success of any recycling or disposal initiatives." It then goes on to list a whole range of things that are needed to be done in terms of data collection to provide the authority with the utmost modern breakdown of the data. I take it you would agree that good data on waste is essential for providing planning and to be able to estimate what needs to be done?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ag a i n, the point I made earlier. The consultation document -- I can

provide a copy of that. I submitted a response -- I can provide a copy of that if you're interested. Basically that starts from the premiss that the UK recognises that it needs data. For local authorities we now have an electronic system which is being developed and rolled out called Waste Data Flow, and that will provide, again, a totally different perspective on data. Historically in the UK, waste data has usually been 15 to 18 months late in being published. For example, the data for 2002/2003 was published in November last year, 18 months late. The Waste Data Flow, it is argued, will provide that data in real time, which would be, again in the context of planning, one would be able to see if there are changes, if there has been any marked increase or indeed a marked decrease in particular fractions or as a whole.

SENATOR VIBERT: C o u l d I ask you whether you see the Jersey operation that you've seen so

far in the proposals being put before the people of Jersey that appears to the Panel to be technology driven rather than waste management driven?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: T h a t is a comment that I've made before and I'm more than happy to

make it again. It is a situation where, as I made in my opening comments, it seems to me similar to the

position that I saw in the UK 20 years ago, where the people in local authorities and in national government were engineers and they were looking at engineering solutions, whether that was through civil engineering and landfill or mechanical engineering in conventional mass burn incineration. I think over the last 10 years that sort of person has become not necessarily in the minority but is certainly now balanced by a range of social scientists, geographers, economists, lawyers, working in the waste field and bringing a waste management perspective as opposed to a technological perspective.

SENATOR VIBERT: T h a n k you. And could I also ask you about our timetable? We have been

presented with a document, with a report, which we actually formally got in November (or it may have been in October) and a decision is expected to be made by Government in February. Do you think that is a fair timetable to deal with a complex matter such as this?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: B a s ed on my experiences in the UK, no.

SENATOR VIBERT: Wh a t would you think would be a fair timetable or timescale? PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ag a i n, I think the scale issue is different and, therefore, whilst in the

UK, where I might say it would be a number of years, perhaps with Jersey being a much smaller jurisdiction it would be somewhere between the four month period that you have quoted and perhaps the several years that it might be in the UK.  But, again, it is a question of engagement in debate and engagement in coming up with solutions.

Ag a in , I am always minded of the Dutch experience. I used to go to Holland on a regular

basis looking at waste facilities and they always had the phrase that "We may spend a lot of time

deciding, but once we've decided, that's it, we've decided." That is something which, again, is,

you know, it may take longer, but do you want a solution or do you want a technology option? SENATOR VIBERT: C o u ld I ask you about the Waste Management Strategy document that you

gave the Panel, "Essential Elements of Waste Management Strategy", in which you outline,

under item 1, a number of items, (a), (b), (c) and (d). (b) deals with integrated policies and

proposals for collection, treatment, recycling and market development, EFW, plus disposal

options. In fact, that is really the opposite to the way in which it is being done here in Jersey,

which is that we are dealing with disposal options first rather than the integrated policy and proposals

for collection, treatment etc.  Is that a fair comment?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ye s , and I think I explained to you that that diagram is one that

appeared in a much more abbreviated form in the DEFRA guide, "Municipal Waste Management Strategies" in 2001. I think what is missing from there is any comment about new technologies because, in 2001, they weren't really being discussed. There were some people talking about perhaps anaerobic digestion, but not in the UK at that stage very much.

SENATOR VIBERT: C o u l d I ask you about the DEFRA Demonstrator Programme now? I

believe you have played a part in that. I wonder if you could explain to the Panel how that actually works and the significance of it in terms of funding for new technologies?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Go v e rnment in the UK, I think, became concerned about waste

management in 2002. I think there are various elements which indicate the beginnings of a change. The Cabinet Office were asked to undertake a review of waste management. That became known as the Strategy Unit, and the report was published in December 2002. That report has 12 or 15 supplementary reports with it. Out of that documentation, DEFRA set up the Waste Implementation Programme and the New Technologies Programme. I have been a member of the Advisory Committee of that programme since November 2003. The details evolved over a period of time. The outline proposals were published in May 2003 and the committee was set up in November. What we have been dealing with is a programme called the Demonstrator Programme, which is £30 million, to promote demonstrator technologies for dealing with biodegradable waste. It excluded incineration; it excluded landfill; it excluded waste reduction, recycling and conventional composting; and focused on those technologies in the middle -- anaerobic digestion, complex material sorting, pyrolysis, gasification, autoclaving and certainly 15 months ago it was "and any others". Since then the "and any others" have begun to appear as one, particularly plasma arc technology for dealing with waste.

T h e programme I think I have illustrated before. There were 17 plus expressions of interest for the demonstrator. There were 49 full applications. There were 17 interviewed and of

those seven preferred bidders were put forward for potential funding. They didn't include

autoclaving, but they included pyrolysis, gasification and a novel type of organic waste treatment.

P ri o r to coming today, I have been trying to find out the up to date statement as to what

happened with those, and I have yet to find out, so I will keep you informed. The aim is that they were hoping to have possibly two or three contracts signed by the end of last year, so I don't know what the current position is. Round 2 is now going ahead and 34 applicants from round 1 were invited to resubmit, and I currently have a big pile that is extremely dense on my desk at home that I will be going through in the next week. The meetings will take place at the end of this month and beginning of next month to adjudicate. So by late February on the website there should be a further listing of preferred bidders.

SENATOR VIBERT: S o , a s far as the technology ---

DEPUTY RONDEL:   F in a l question before we move on, please?

SENATOR VIBERT: I h a v e got two more.

DEPUTY RONDEL: We l l, t here are quite a few others to be asked.

SENATOR VIBERT: As f a r as a new company is concerned with a new technology, would you

regard that as a first step to recognition that that technology is well worth looking at if it gets through those stages of the demonstrator programme?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: Ye s , and obviously the process of evaluation has been such that there

is a programme management company that does a lot of detailed evaluation. The members of the Advisory Committee are given a selection of bids and the people are asked to judge them according to a set of transparent criteria. Those criteria are all posted on the website and, therefore, if someone gets to the preferred bidder status, then obviously they have satisfied the Programme Management Committee and the Advisory Committee that they are worthy of further notice.

T h e p roviso that I would make, and one that has created a certain amount of problem, is whether something is new to the UK as opposed to new to elsewhere, and that is something

which one would always be cautious in saying "Don't necessarily just look at what's happening in the UK." I know you are visiting somewhere tomorrow. But, at the end of the day, some of these technologies, when people talk about pyrolysis, gasification, mechanical and biological

treatment, a review that was done two years ago quoted 70 or 80 operating worldwide as reference

points. The problem in the UK is we don't have any operating as reference plants, and that's where the dynamics comes in. In the diagram that you referred to earlier, that diagram was prepared in 2001 and the word MBT, or pyrolysis gasification, isn't mentioned because it was not on the radar. That is where, again, coming back to Deputy Duhamel about 50 years is what other new technologies will be coming through in the next five to ten years.

SENATOR VIBERT: C o u ld I just turn to the ----

DEPUTY RONDEL: No , I have got quite a number of others, to be honest. We will come back

to you in a moment.  It is a matter of time, Senator.

SENATOR VIBERT: Ye s , a ll right.

DEPUTY RONDEL:   S e n at or Le Maistre?

SENATOR LE MAISTRE: Ye s , I wanted to try and focus, given the document produced by

Public Services, on the comparison of recycling and energy recovery, etc between countries,

some of which is a bit dated. But either from this table or maybe others would you say that there

is any particular country -- and one looks clearly here at Holland and Switzerland as being, it

would appear from the table, leaders in the field in terms of both recycling, composting and

energy recovery, whereas we have been driven by energy recovery, it would appear from that

table -- would you consider Holland and Switzerland to be at the cutting edge, as it were, in

terms of policy and strategy and is the UK sort of catching up in that sense, or would you say

that things have now shifted and that we are looking to other places as being at the cutting edge? PROFESSOR COGGINS: M y f irst comment is a proviso, that one has to be very careful in

comparing different countries. Obviously there are national variations in terms of size, in terms

of administration, in terms of political viewpoints. In Europe there is an added complication, as

in if you were to put USA or Canada in there as well, which is that other countries interpret

waste perhaps in different ways. The most important one, the most important difference, is the

interpretation of municipal waste. In Europe, as per the Landfill Directive, as per the

Commission, municipal waste is defined as waste from households and waste of a similar nature

and composition from businesses, commerce and whatever. So when you look at figures for

Continental Europe, what you will find is that some of the recycling figures will include commercial

waste that has been recycled.

T h i s, again, comes back to an earlier question about data. Without knowing what that

data is you cannot always distinguish it. In the UK, there is a difference between England and

Wales. In England we have targets for recycling for household waste. England has tried to

argue that that definition of household waste and waste which is owned by local authorities fits

the European definition. I personally don't agree. They brought out a guidance last autumn,

whereby they said municipal waste in England is waste from households and some commercial

waste and some industrial waste, which, to me, would not bear up in a legal situation in Europe. In Wa les the targets are for municipal waste. So you have a situation in England where

trade waste, business waste, is not allowed to go into a civic amenity site and to be counted

towards household recycling. In Wales it can. So you have a difference between England and

Wales. I think that is the point that is important to keep in mind, the difference in data and

definition.

Go i n g back to your other question, the Dutch have obviously embarked on what many would consider as an integrated strategy. They are very different, of course, because you don't

have many landfill sites in Holland. You dig a whole and it fills with water straightaway. So they have been obliged to go down a different route, which, again, comes back to the point I made earlier about local circumstances. It is interesting with the Dutch that they have a very large energy from waste programme. The incinerators are owned by the Dutch Government, so basically they have a real control and they have promoted waste minimisation and recycling. In 1993, they made it compulsory for households to separate garden, fruit and vegetable waste. So that explains partly why they have a large element of composting. But in their waste management plan which they published two years ago now, the latest one, they argued that they felt their recycling and composting rate had possibly reached a plateau of about 40/45% and in their current strategy they are promoting waste prevention and co-incineration of waste, which is, again, somewhat novel in Europe. The Germans are doing it to some extent with cement cones for waste streams, but in Holland they are saying co-incineration, perhaps in power stations. It is

something which, certainly in the UK, if you followed the stories in the last couple of weeks on

television, in 10 years time there may only be one nuclear power station operating in the UK and one coal fired power station and people are beginning to think, to rethink of waste as co- incineration rather than incineration in the traditional sense. Again, obviously, the Dutch and the Swiss, my view there would be national pride, links with the country, links with the environment. Perhaps those are differences that Margaret Thatcher had a lot of trouble trying to justify that Britain wasn't the dirty person of Europe.

DEPUTY RONDEL: R i g h t, thank you. An item that hasn't been approached. The life of the

chimney and the operation of the plant post 2008, could I have your views on what you believe the condition of the chimney is? You may not have seen that particular report, I don't know whether you have, but whether or not it can be extended beyond 2008 and also whether or not the plant itself could run for a further period of time beyond 2008. Just give us your views, please?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: M y i nitial comment is that I am not a technologist. I have not seen

the report you mention. So I would be very careful not to make any specific comments. All I would do is to perhaps draw your attention to what happened in the UK. When the Incineration Directive came in in the mid-nineties, 30 incinerators closed full stop. A number were retrofitted to take into account the new emission controls and to bring them up to standard. I am familiar with Nottingham, where the project was done within budget and within the timescale -- £9 million and within, I think it was, three years. Sheffield was a complete opposite case. The publicly declared cost was £27 million and it was way over time. So those two examples indicate that it could be done, but it might not be done, efficiently and economically. I think I would err on the side of possibly either Professor Swithinbank or somebody else who is better qualified to particularly advise on the chimney itself.

DEPUTY RONDEL: T h a n k you. The final question, because time is ticking on our next

interviewee at midday, will come from Senator Vibert .

SENATOR VIBERT: T h a n k you. I wonder if I could deal with the OJEC notice that the Committee decided was the route down which they would go to get expressions of interest. I

believe you have seen the notice. I just want to put to you whether you were surprised by the shortage

of people who actually responded to it, particularly the absence of companies like Onyx and Shanks and the waste management companies and also whether the restriction that was placed on it, its criteria, which said that you had to have two reference plants, did not in fact practically eliminate any alternative technologies coming forward?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: I t h i n k I have discussed and I have mentioned this before.  Certainly it

would appear to be a surprise to me, and I think there are numerous grounds. One is perhaps the wording, in terms of two plus two reference plants, and perhaps the issue of design and build as opposed to fund and operate. I think the experience that I have in the UK is waste management companies appear to have traditionally been more than keen to bid for waste management contracts, but they have normally been interested in offering a package, a solution, that may involve collection, recycling, education and publicity as well as any disposal option.

SENATOR VIBERT: B e a ri ng in mind that this was actually done in, I think it was, 2001 and it

was prepared by consultants, would you not think that they would have known that, by limiting it to two reference plants, effectively it excluded any alternative technology because there were actually no reference plants built of alternative technologies?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: I n 2 001 there would have been alternative technology plants in

existence, but whether they would have been acceptable or recognised as such? There are certainly ones in North America and Japan that date back before 2001. There were probably ones in Europe, but there were none in the UK.

DEPUTY RONDEL: P ro f e ssor Swithinbank, I know we have got another five minutes before

our next witness ----

SENATOR VIBERT: P ro f e ssor Coggins.

DEPUTY RONDEL: S o rr y , Professor Coggins, I apologise. Have you anything further to add

for the Panel?

PROFESSOR COGGINS: No .

DEPUTY RONDEL: If n o t, I would like to thank you on behalf of the Panel for attending and giving evidence. Thank you. There will now be a short interval of about four minutes before our

next witness.

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