8 May, 2011 | Publication
Prof David C Wilson has published a paper with Rachel Cahill, one of his former students, and Prof Sue Grimes, on Extended producer responsibility for packaging wastes and WEEE – a comparison of implementation and the role of local authorities across Europe. The paper was published as a review article in the May 2011 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Waste Management & Research.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is one of the most important policy tools available in waste management, which in principle transfers the responsibility and costs of managing post-consumer product waste back from the local authorities to the ‘producer’ or supply-chain which provided the original product. However, despite common EU Directives covering EPR for packaging waste and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), among other waste streams, implementation has varied markedly between Member States. This paper compares a representative sample of eleven EU countries based on five indicators: stakeholders and responsibilities; compliance mechanisms; role of local authorities; financing mechanisms and merits and limitations, with four countries selected for more detailed case study analysis. Similarities, trends and differences in national systems are highlighted with particular focus on the role of local authorities and their relationship with obligated producers and the effect on the operation and success of each system.
On the whole, EPR for packaging and WEEE has been successfully implemented throughout Europe in terms of Directive targets. It is, however, clear that the EPR systems currently in application across Europe differ primarily due to contrasting opinion on the legitimacy of local authorities as stakeholders and, in some cases, a fear on the part of industry of associated costs. Where local authorities have been engaged in the design and implementation of national systems, existing infrastructure used and defined roles established for producers and local authorities, results have been significantly more positive than in the cases where local authorities have had limited engagement.
8 December, 2010 | Awards
Anne Scheinberg, David C Wilson and Ljiljana Rodic have won the 2010 ISWA Publication Award for their book Solid Waste Managment in the World’s Cities, which they co-authored and edited for UN-Habitat. The award was presented to Prof Wilson and Ms Scheinberg by the ISWA President Jeff Cooper at a ceremony in the Town Hall at the ISWA World Congress in Hamburg on 15 November 2010, which was attended by Graham Alabaster on behalf of UN-Habitat. As a result of the award, Professor Wilson and Ms Scheinberg were invited to write the guest editorial for the December 2010 issue of Waste Managment & Research, under the title ‘What is good practice in solid waste management’.
The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) presents an annual publication award to the best publication worldwide in the field of solid waste management. The 2010 award has gone to the three lead authors of this flagship publication, the third in UN-Habitat’s series on Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities. The book draws out good practice using an innovative framework based on Integrated Sustainable Waste Managment (ISWM) as a ‘lens’ for viewing a city’s solid waste system: the focus is not only on the physical elements of the system (collection, disoposal and resource recovery) but also on the critical governance aspects that must be addressed for a system to be successful and sustainable (user and provider inclusivity, financial sustainability and sound institutions/ proactive policies). A new and innovative methodology was developed to gather consistent and comparable data from 20 cities, chosen to represent cities – rich and poor, large and small – in all six inhabited continents.
The award was presented to the three lead authors/ editors, but was the collective effort of a much larger team. More than 35 waste professionals contributed, largely drawn from a global community of practice, the Collaborative Working Group on Solid Waste Managment in Low- and Middle- Income Countries; in addition to teams in each of the 20 cities. The project was intiated and guided by Graham Alabaster on behalf of UN-Habitat.
Jeff Cooper, ISWA President and member of the Award judging panel, writes: ‘I commend this publication as essential reading for waste managers and all those concerned about resource management and the recovery of waste for further productive use.’
The book has recieved a number of positive and high profile reviews, including in the December 2010 issue of Waste Management & Research and the January 2011 issue of the member journal of the UK Chartered Institution of Wastes management, CIWM.
The book is published by Earthscan. A 20% discount is available on their website, using discount code AF20. 2012 update: the book is now also available via the WASTE website.
8 October, 2010 | Conference
Professor David C Wilson will chair the first day of the European Waste Management 2010 conference in Brussels on 1 December 2010. The conference is aimed particularly at industry operating in Europe, and focuses on overcoming challenges in the implementation of the Waste Framework Directive whilst minimising a company’s environmental footprint. A recurring theme is the effective implementation of waste prevention, which is one of DCW’s particular current interests.
8 July, 2010 | Waste Management
Al Jazeera English News today ran a feature on the Zabbaleen, the informal waste recyclers in Cairo. After the video clip, Professor David C Wilson was interviewed live by videolink between the Doha and London studios, to discuss waste management in developing countries more generally. He highlighted the financial benefits that informal recyclers bring to a city, and argued for co-operative solutions – the city recognises the recyclers and works with them, to provide the recyclers with dignity, access to the waste and more hygienic working conditions,; and in turn benefits from more efficient recycling and thus less waste that the city needs to collect and dispose of.
The feature was part of a series on ‘Our Wasteful World’. The video clip highlights the very high recycling rates achieved in Cairo, but also the lack of recognition of the Zabbaleen by the authorities and the unhygienic and degrading working conditions. David Wilson pointed out that cities like Paris and London had similar, relatively efficient, largely informal closed-loop recycling systems in the 19th century; these were displaced by formal, municipal collection systems, introduced to protect public health by removing wastes from the cities; and more recently also by modern systems focusing on the environmental standards of waste disposal. Western countries have thus had to rebuild recycling almost from scratch over the last 10-20 years, at considerable cost to the public sector, whereas the original informal sector recycling systems still operate in most developing country cities. These systems both provide livelihoods to large numbers of the urban poor, whose priority is where the next meal will come from; and also recycle a sizeable % of municipal solid wastes, thus saving city governments $millions in avoided collection and disposal costs – in effect, the poor subsidising the rich.
8 July, 2010 | Waste Management
If we were to design, from scratch, a sustainable waste management system for London suitable for the twenty first century, what would it look like?This is the topic of the first web-based ‘provocation’ launched by London REMADE. The starting point for the debate is a series of four essays, one of which was written by Professor David C Wilson. The format is truly participative – you can take part online simply by clicking ‘join the debate’ and adding your comment, amending what the original authors or other commentators have said or writing your own essay.
London REMADE is London’s independent promoter of resource efficiency and has built an extensive cross-sectoral network of experienced resource management practitioners. Now that the original funding has finished, it has relaunched itself as an independent environmental, economic and social think tank, which is unrestricted by sectoral or political interest or reliance on a funding source. The programme of provocations will consider resources in the broadest sense – materials, finances, people, infrastructure, institutions – and explore how they might be developed, deployed and distributed in London in the most sustainable way.
The first provocation essays are:
Essay 1 – Extreme producer responsiblity – where’s the decongestion charge? Kit Strange, resource Recovery Forum
Essay 2 – Sustainable waste & resource management – challenging the underlying assumptions. Professor David C Wilson
Essay 3 – The analogies from history. Dr Julian Parfitt, Resources Futures
Essay 4 – Just follow the money. David Fell, Brook Lyndhurst.
The essays suggest that the pattern and manner of waste collection inLondon is an historical accident. There is no reason to suppose that the current regime is ‘the best’. A waste management system built upon nineteenth century boundaries and twentieth century political assumptions is at odds with the economic, social and environmental objectives this century presents.
Click here to take part in the debate and to read the current state of the essays including contributions and rewrites from all the contributors, This is a unique opportunity through an open and interactive site to engage in deep and expansive debate between stakeholders throughout and beyond London. The outcome from each debate will be synthesised and available online for all to see and use.
