Charge! – Paying for household waste services
CIWM President and lifelong waste policy and planning consultant David C Wilson reflects in his September column for the CIWM Journal on the challenges of devising the right policies to charge households for solid waste management services. Of course, we already pay for our solid waste services, but that charge is usually hidden within a wider charge or tax, which in the UK is council tax. Across Europe, many local authorities have been experimenting over the last 20 years with pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) systems, where the charge varies at least in part according to usage. The growing evidence base suggests that PAYT does work, in terms of reducing waste quantities and increasing recycling. But why should local authorities, and ultimately households, pay for all the costs of municipal solid waste management? Particularly in the context of Defra’s forthcoming Resources and Waste Strategy for England, DCW argues for real Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), with teeth, that will move the full financial burden of collecting, recycling and disposing of packaging and other products in the municipal waste stream from local authorities to the producers and supply chain. If we cannot have PAYT, let us at least have PAYB (pay-as-you-buy).
‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators to measure the performance of a city’s SWM system
As the culmination of five year’s work by a large team around the world, DCW is delighted to announce the publication today, in the peer reviewed journal Waste Management, of a seminal paper on the development and use of the ‘Wasteaware’ benchmark indicators for...
ISWA reports on Globalisation and Waste Management
The ISWA Task Force on Globalisation published its final report today, to coincide with the opening of the ISWA 2014 World Congress in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Two supporting reports have also been published, on Global Recycling Markets: Plastic Waste and A Review of...
DCW guest edits special issue of WM&R on Cities and Waste
Professor David C Wilson has guest edited with Costas Velis of the University of Leeds a special issue of the peer reviewed journal Waste Management & Research on Cities and Waste. They co-authored the editorial on Cities and waste: Current and emerging issues,...
DCW wins 2014 ICE publishing award
Professor David C Wilson and his co-authors Costas Velis of the University of Leeds and Ljiljana Rodic of Wageningen University have won a prestigious award from the Institution of Civil Engineers. DCW is particularly pleased that an overview paper on Integrated...
GIZ publish seminal work on Operator Models
GIZ have announced the finalisation of their work on Operator Models, focusing on how services for municipal solid waste management are delivered around the world, and analyzing the success factors and conditions for the different models. Based on an in-depth...
Wales and England publish national Waste Prevention Programmes
Wales and England have published their national Waste Prevention Programmes. Both see waste prevention and resource efficiency as an opportunity to promote growth while protecting the environment and moving towards a more sustainable and circular economy. Prof David C...
DCW wins 2024 ISWA Publication Award
DCW won the 2024 ISWA Publication Award for his magnum opus, looking back over his long career at the evolution of waste and resource management since the first environmental control legislation in the 1970s, and reflecting on current and future priorities.
DCW awards his Presidential Medal
DCW awarded his CIWM Presidential Medal for 2018 to Mike Webster, the founder and CEO of the new charity Wasteaid, which is working directly with local communities to tackle the global waste crisis.
DCW hands over CIWM Presidency
DCW handed over to Enda Kiernan at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 13th November 2018. The Gaelic Football team which Enda manages appeared in the lead photo story of the previous day’s Irish Times.
DCW inaugurated as CIWM President
Professor David C Wilson giving his inauguration speech as CIWM President 2017 at Church House Westminster in October 2017. His theme for the year was solid waste management as the forgotten utility service, underpinning modern society.
DCW’s CIWM Presidential Report 2017
DCW commissioned WasteAid UK to prepare a practical toolkit for poor communities on how to make useful products from the low-value plastics and organics in their waste. In its first year, the website was visited 56,000 times, with 7,000 downloads of the toolkit.
ISWA Publication Award 2015
DCW with co-authors Ljiljana Rodic, Andy Whiteman, Costas Velis, Barbara Oelz, Joachim Stretz and Anne Scheinberg, receiving the Award from ISWA Scientific and Technical Committee Chair Antonis Mavropoulos (left), at the ISWA 2015 World Congress in Antwerp on Tuesday 08 September.