West London Waste Authority

The future of waste disposal

To find out about how the future of waste in West London, click on the links below or read on.

Why we must change

The national Waste Strategy 2007 sets out very clearly why we must change the way we manage our waste.

As a society, we are consuming natural resources at an unsustainable rate. If every country consumed natural resources at the rate the UK does, we would need three planets to live on. The most crucial threat is from dangerous climate change.

Reducing waste is an important contributor to this goal. Each year in the UK, we generate about 100 million tonnes of waste from households, commerce and industry. Most of this ends up in landfill where the organic part rots producing methane (a potent greenhouse gas) while valuable energy is used in extracting and processing new raw materials.

Our aim must be to reduce waste by making products with fewer natural resources. We must break the link between economic growth and waste growth. Most products should be re-used or their materials recycled. Energy should be recovered from other wastes where possible. Only for a small amount of residual material, will landfill be necessary.

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The Waste Hierarchy

The benefits of applying the waste hierarchy will not just be environmental. We can save money by making products with fewer natural resources, and we can reduce the costs of waste treatment and disposal. Waste is a drag on the economy and business productivity. Improving productivity can generate new opportunities and jobs.

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The strategy for change in West London

The issues identified at a national level are just as relevant in West London. We began the change programme in 2005 when we prepared our first Joint Municipal Waste Strategy (link to strategy document) with our partner boroughs. The Strategy is based on the waste hierarchy and contains eight key policies to deliver change in a managed, measurable and affordable manner. The policies are:

Policy 1: Current and future policy development will have regard to the National and Mayor of London’s Municipal Waste Management Strategies and other relevant national, regional and local guidance.

Policy 2: West London Waste Authority and its constituent Boroughs will prioritise waste reduction and waste reuse.

Policy 3: Jointly, the Waste London Waste Authority and constituent Boroughs will aim to recycle and compost at least:

  • 28% of municipal waste by 2006/7;
  • 40% of municipal waste by 2010; and
  • 50% of municipal waste by 2020.

We aim to reach these targets by meeting statutory performance standards for household waste recycling and composting in each authority by April 2006.  The Action Plans will set intermediate targets.

Policy 4: The collection authorities will serve all households with recycling collections of at least four materials by 2008.

Policy 5: West London Waste Authority and its constituent Boroughs will reduce biodegradable municipal waste landfilled with regard to the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme.

Policy 6: West London Waste Authority and constituent Boroughs will seek a residual waste management solution in accordance with the waste hierarchy, that presents value for money and that offers reliability in the long term.

Policy 7: The West London Waste Authority and constituent Boroughs will seek to provide waste management services that offer good value, that provide customer satisfaction and that meet and exceed legislative requirements.

Policy 8: The West London Waste Authority and constituent Boroughs will work together to achieve the aims of this strategy and are committed to share equitably the costs and rewards of achieving its aims.
The Strategy was updated in 2010 to include new data and national policies. Insert weblink to Addendum

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WLWA vision

In 2009 the WLWA and the partner boroughs adopted a new high level vision.

  1. To establish a better partnership with our boroughs
  2. To take a lead role in delivering on the boroughs Climate Change and Carbon Management agendas
  3. To become a resource management Authority rather than a waste disposal authority
  4. To champion waste reduction and minimisation in West London
  5. To re-use, recycle, compost or recover 70% of our waste stream
  6. To send zero waste to landfill
  7. To be London’s exemplar Resource Management Partnership

The new Vision is deliberately very challenging and much work is still required to refine the targets and assess affordability and deliverability in a number of areas. However work has started on some of the key areas. A new joined up approach has been achieved with the boroughs with more emphasis on partnership working, such as this website and our approach to waste minimisation and re-use.

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Increasing costs

There are a number of financial drivers to reduce landfill including the reducing limits that we have for landfilling waste set by the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, but more importantly the landfill tax. For every tonne of waste that we landfill we currently pay the government a tax of £48. This is in addition to the payments that we make to the landfill owner and transport contractor.

In 2009/10 we landfilled 396,000 tonnes which required a landfill tax payment of £15.84 million. The cost of landfill tax is set to rise by £8 per tonne for the next four years representing an additional cost to the Authority of £3.16million, without any other inflationary pressures. The business model for change is therefore compelling and immediate.

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How we will manage our waste in future

We will seek to develop our waste services according to with the waste hierarchy. We will be providing our residents with as much information as possible to help them reduce their own waste and think more about the life cycle cost of the things that they buy. We want to encourage people to consider buying good quality second-hand goods, and donate or sell any goods they no longer want.

Our boroughs will help our residents to recycle and compost as much waste as possible and we’ll support these services as much as we can. These positive actions will significantly reduce our waste but there will still be a considerable amount that needs to be treated and / or disposed of.

We must move away from landfilling waste as quickly as we can, but given the scale of the facilities that we will need to do this it will take some time to change. We will be seeking waste treatment services that are able to recover more material for recycling if possible, but above all we want to ensure that as little waste, or preferably no waste, goes to landfill.

To ensure that we get the right solution at the best possible price for our residents we must prepare carefully and take the time we need to get new contracts in place to manage our waste. We will need to carefully select private sector partners to work with us. We want partners who understand and share our vision of waste as a resource, rather than a problem. As far as is practical we want to deal with the waste produced by our residents and businesses in our own area. We do not want to continue to export our untreated waste to other parts of the country, although we recognise that if our waste is turned into a material that is useful to manufacturers and other businesses, they may not be located locally.

We have already started the process forthe procurement of a long-term contract for waste treatment. So far we have issued public notices to the waste industry defining what we want to achieve and asking them to help us design and operate the new services and build new plants if we need them. We’re taking a realistic view on the time that this will take, up to two years, with a construction phase possibly to follow. We’re anxious to do this work as quickly as possible, but as the contracts that we finally put in place might be for up to 25 years with costs of up to £1 billion, it’s important that we take the time to get it right.

We will be keen to share with residents how we’re progressing, but at times the process will be the subject of confidential negotiations. We will use this website to keep you updated as much as we can. Further information about the process is available on the residual waste service procurement page.

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Other waste in West London

Our responsibility and that of the boroughs is mainly focused on waste produced in houses and flats, but this is only a small part of the total waste produced in West London. Waste from businesses, schools and hospitals makes up the majority of the local waste stream.

Our boroughs working in partnership with the Mayor of London are looking to identify sites where this waste can be managed locally. It may be possible to manage both household waste and other waste at the same sites benefitting everyone. The West London Waste Plan is seeking to address these issues.

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Increasing costs