GIVEN the last 12 months, this new year is more welcome than most. But January is a time to look back as well as forward, a chance to reflect on opportunities ahead and what’s been left undone. In the world of waste infrastructure, Northern Ireland’s ‘to-do list’ is still disconcertingly large, but so too is the opportunity.
The region is facing a waste crisis. We produce too much rubbish and have failed to invest in appropriate infrastructure to deal with it locally. Hence the unfavourable national and international headlines last month highlighting that Northern Ireland is now shipping waste across the Atlantic to be incinerated in Maine.
Is that a long-term, sustainable solution, environmentally or financially? Is it sensible to pay to export waste to create power and jobs in the USA when we could use it to grow our circular economy? Clearly not, but we don’t yet have enough local infrastructure to convert this non-recyclable waste from a problem into an opportunity.
Although it’s around 20 years since government identified a need for councils to develop modern waste facilities, it still hasn’t happened.
Arc21’s proposals to develop an energy from waste (EfW) plant plus one of the island’s largest recycling facilities at Hightown Quarry in Mallusk have been recommended by three sets of professional planners, including the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC). The planning application and the PAC recommendation to approve it remain to be redetermined by the Infrastructure Minister.
Although recycling has reached an impressive 51 per cent, the amount of household waste produced since 2012/13 has increased by about 10 per cent to just under one million tonnes (not including commercial and industrial waste).
Northern Ireland is land-filling and exporting 400,000 tonnes annually, while arc21 households produce 15 million wheelie bins’ worth of rubbish every year. Landfill is rapidly running out and we’re committed to a 10 per cent cap on it (currently it’s 24 per cent). Export markets are closing or becoming prohibitively expensive as waste imports are taxed.
Failure to deliver a workable alternative will precipitate a waste crisis, exposing ratepayers to unmanageable costs and a potential systemic failure in waste services.
The solution is to develop modern waste facilities, like the 500 EfWs already operational across Europe. Building these also delivers on our councils’ waste management plan, which has been signed-off by Daera.
The circular economy, green growth and clean fuels such as hydrogen are now mainstream concepts. Arc21’s proposed infrastructure represents a £240 million private sector investment that can be a catalyst for change to help deliver these objectives.
Building the facilities will support up to 455 construction jobs and 300-plus direct and indirect jobs when operational. But that is just the start. They will also increase the supply of recyclable material for local re-processors and generate heat and power which could support new complementary circular economy activity, including hydrogen production (the sale of these will also provide a welcome boost to councils’ external revenues).
In 2000, the region's first waste management strategy envisioned Northern Ireland “being a European centre of excellence in resource and waste management”. Instead, we’re 20-years behind!
At present there’s just one private sector EfW plant in east Belfast, designed to manage commercial and industrial waste. We need at least one more facility. Northern Ireland has talked a good talk about building infrastructure for years – but 2021 needs to be the year we walk the walk and deliver.
:: Tim Walker is acting chief executive of arc21, a local government waste partnership made up of six councils
