A CIWM report on a recent study tour highlights the Netherlands’ approach to meeting long-term European waste targets - including policy implementation by a national Waste Management Council, higher landfill tax and close working between municipalities.10 representatives from CIWM, Defra, the DTI and a partnership between East Sussex County Council and the municipality of Rouen participated in this tour of Netherlands energy from waste facilities. The initiative was partly funded by a prize awarded by the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) to CIWM for its energy from waste good practice guide published in 2003.
The tour group visited a sludge treatment plant in Dordrecht, and four energy-from-waste plants in Arnhem, Twence, Leeuwarden and Alkmaar.
Striking aspects of the tour included the way in which a number of the sites offered sophisticated, integrated waste management solutions; the AVR-AVIRA facility in Arnhem, for example, provided district heating combined with a modern vegetable, garden and fruit waste composting plant.
Other key facts to emerge from the tour included:
• The national government has set up a Waste Management Council to implement waste policy at national, provincial and municipal level.
• As a result of the Netherlands Waste Management programme, which had a 60% recycling target by 2000, municipalities have been required to undertake separate collections of dry materials such as paper, textiles and hazardous waste.
• Many municipalities work together to procure and finance facilities for a much larger area, sometimes even the whole of the province.
• Combustible waste is banned from landfill.
• Landfill is at the bottom of the order of preference for managing waste, and landfill tax is Euro 120 (£80) per tonne meaning that other waste management options do not seem expensive by comparison.
• The Netherlands has succeeded in diverting 80% of waste from landfill.
Tom Ellis, CIWM’s technical representative on the tour, commented: ‘Achieving planning permission for incineration plants is not all plain sailing in the Netherlands. Like the UK there is strong resistance to incineration plants and acceptance only comes with conditions as demonstrated by the extension of the Alkmaar facility, where permission was conditional on installation of one of the best air pollution control systems in Europe.
‘However, public engagement at the earliest stages makes it less likely that the solutions needed are blocked.’
For a full copy of the report go to www.ciwm.co.uk/energyfromwasteneths
