On Tuesday I attended the confusingly titled and located Collection Conference at the Wellcome Collection.
It was a very interesting conference from the point of view of a relative newbie to the industry; although all the policy-type stuff was in the first session, I found that the presentations on the operational issues of recycling collections gave me a really useful insight into what’s happening on the ground.
I was there as an ordinary attendee, but my cover was soon blown by Defra’s Head of Waste Strategy, and I had to give an update on our review of Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations from my hiding place at the back of the audience. Still, it has given me my first taste of fame!
There was a good turnout from Local Authorities, and coffee breaks and lunch gave me a good opportunity to talk to them about Schedule 2. I admit, I was expecting to get my ear bent a bit, and was pleasantly surprised at the pragmatic approach of most. We seem to have succeeded in getting out the message that legislative change could take time, and they seemed generally happy that we are taking the review forward as fast as we can.
National Indicators came up a couple of times in conversation too, with some people expressing concern that they might not be as joined-up as they could be, and in particular that they should be based on carbon dioxide equivalents rather than tonnages. Apparently a certain local authority (who shall remain nameless since I only have this information by hearsay) is trucking their green waste to a composter several counties away.
CLG have recently asked all Government Departments to start reviewing their NI sets, so I’ll be working on that over the coming months. The current waste NIs seem to be reasonably popular with local authorities, but I’ll be attending a Defra-organised workshop on 9th June (details still to be finalised) to get some feedback from the end users of the targets.
And finally, for now, I’ll be on the Defra stand at the CIWM Futuresource conference on the 10th June, so do come and say hello!