System-wide assessment of Indonesia’s plastic value chain

DCW was pleased to co-author two papers on a system-wide assessment of Indonesia’s plastic value chain. One, mapping external stakeholders, was published this week in the journal Environment Systems and Decisions. The other mapped both plastic and monetary flows and stakeholders dynamics, and was published in July in the high impact Journal of Cleaner Production. A third part of the trilogy was published in the Journal of Circular Economy in April 2025. All three papers demonstrate the innovative use of the structured systems-based framework provided by CVORR (Complex Value Optimisation for Resource Recovery), for the earlier development of which I chaired the Steering Committee. I also sat on the Advisory board of PISCES, a collaborative research project on preventing plastics pollution in Indonesia, from which these papers are outputs.

I am grateful to the two lead authors Eleni Iacovidou and Spyridoula Gerasimidou; and to my fellow co-authors Professor Susan Jobling; Eddy Setiadi Soedjono; Jessika Luth Richter; Mike Webster; Andre Kuncoroyekti; and Elena Lovat.

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 https://www.babyscanclinic.com/blog/order-generic-levitra/ 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).

Turning the Tide

DCW’s February column for the CIWM Journal focused on the topical subject of marine plastics. He reported back on ‘Oceans 21’, the latest Development Finance Forum organised by the German Development Bank KfW, where he led a workshop on marine litter. The conclusions were clear: the amount of plastics entering the oceans is at least an order of magnitude greater than estimates of the visible quantities in the oceans or on beaches – so the first priority is to ‘turn off the tap’. And the most effective way to do that is to extend municipal solid waste collection in developing countries to all people and to eliminate uncontrolled dumping and burning; our best judgement was that this could reduce the weight of plastics entering the oceans by 50-70%.

DCW to speak on the future of waste and recycling policy in the UK

Professor David C Wilson will be a keynote speaker at the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum’s Seminar on 10 January 2017 on The future for waste and recycling policy in the UK. DCW’s subject will be The policy context for waste and the circular economy. Timed to follow a year on from the introduction of the EU Circular Economy package of reforms, the seminar will discuss the next steps for implementing measures to improve resource efficiency and the future for the waste sector in the UK. A particular focus for discussion on the day will likely be on the impacts of Brexit.

Full details, a live agenda and a booking form are available on the website.