EIMissue8

JUNE/JULY 2010

FLOODINGWATER WARSCOMPOSTING

PLASTICS RECYCLINGFUTURESOURCE

BRITISH MAMMALS

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ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

Welcome to Issue 8 of Environment Industry Magazine; anissue that I think gives us cause for celebration as it signifiesthe climax of our first year of publishing. I can hardly believe that it is 12 months since I sat in my office on agloriously sunny Saturday writing the introduction to thefirst issue of Environment Industry Magazine. There is aslight sense of Déjà vu; here I am in front of my laptop onanother beautiful Saturday in May. This year, however, Iam in much more salubrious surroundings in theCotswolds, filling my time before heading to my favouriterestaurant (and possibly the best in the world) for familybirthday celebrations, a set of circumstances which I feelare much more acceptable. I have promised Kim, theowner of the New World Vietnamese Restaurant inTewkesbury that I would give her a mention in EnvironmentIndustry Magazine but it has always felt a bit contrived toprise it into the editorial without proper reason. I shouldalso point out that calling the New World the best restau-rant in the world may be a moot point, however, havingtrained and worked as a chef for 13 years and been luckyenough to have travelled extensively, I have never been ina food establishment which is as consistently good as thisone. I have eaten here regularly for around 7 years andhave never had cause for anything but compliments.

If you happen to find yourself racing along the M5 in thevicinity of Tewkesbury, or anywhere around theCotswolds, then I recommend that you make a concertedeffort to head to the New World. Just tell them, Alex fromManchester sent you!

Ironically this beautiful Saturday in the Cotswolds remindsme of how fickle the British weather can be. Just a fewyears ago at the height of summer most of the UK sufferedwith some of the worst flooding in living memory; thisarea in particular was hardest hit. So it seems fitting thatthis issue contains a major flooding focus and even morefitting that I am writing the introduction in Tewkesbury,which is still suffering from the impact of the 2007 floods.As usual we have some incredible writers: the lead editorialon water is provided by Dr Patricia Wouters, who offers aninteresting paradox for the flooding focus that, whilst welive on an island with relatively few worries about waterabundance, there are places in the world where thestresses placed on water could literally boil over into conflict. With this in mind, we have editorial from Hyder’sBob Sargent, discussing The Flood and Water ManagementAct, and from Ben Kidd of CIRIA on the flood resilience ofour infrastructure. To round up this water section of themagazine we also discuss methods of managing rainwaterrunoff with editorials from Marcus Bicknell, partner atRain Water Harvesting Ltd, on Flood Attenuation and fromTerry Nash, Chair of the Rainwater Harvesting Association,discussing…well, rainwater harvesting.

Hopefully, the summer of 2010 will be significantly betterthan the 2007 one; we can only hope that, with the combi-nation of BA strikes, the financial crisis forcing everyoneto stay at home and the Icelandic volcano (Eyjafjallajökull)

intermittently closing European airspace, the carbon pendulum may swing in our favour for a British summerlike the ones you remember from childhood. I think thereis a real sense of optimism in the air; we have a coalitionGovernment which actually seems to be working and, despite the impending swingeing financial cuts, thingsfeel promising; so much so that even the Great Britishpress are unable to break the mood.

I don’t want to tempt fate but it also seems as though oursporting endeavours for the summer seem genuinely optimistic. This year’s Wimbledon has a good chance ofseeing a British winner, our cricketers are actually playingcricket and playing well compared to how they usually doand finally, is the 44 year wait over? Will England do theunthinkable in South Africa and actually win? I sincerelyhope that when I sit in front of my laptop in 2 monthstime, writing the introduction for the August/Septemberissue of Environment Industry Magazine, the answer isyes, of course England won the World Cup!!

Before I go, I would like to drag this back to discussingthe content of the magazine. If you read nothing else inthis issue, obviously apart from this introduction, pleasetake the time to look at the Elementa Case Study on page112. Having raved about their waste-to-energy plant for 2months, you can finally see for yourselves the future ofwaste management. Also, I am extremely proud to haveDr Derek Yalden, Chair of the Mammal Society and myformer lecturer on British Mammals at Manchester University, writing on the impact reintroducing largemammals could have on British wildlife.

And finally, in Issue One I dedicated the magazine to myfather John, who had, at the time, undergone a livertransplant. Since then, lots of people have asked how heis doing and I am happy to say that he is in good healthand I would like to thank everyone for their concern.

I hope you all have a great summer,

Alex StaceyManaging Editor

INTRODUCTION FROM THE EDITOR

Alex Stacey


News Pages 04 - 24CONTENTS

Environment Industry Magazine is proud to be the official media partner for the UK Sustainable Development Association.Every effort is made to verify all information published, but Environment Industry Magazine cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissionsor for any losses that may arise as a result. Opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect those of EnviroMedia Ltd. Environment IndustryMagazine welcomes contributions for publication. Submissions are accepted on the basis of full assignment of copyright to EnviroMedia Ltd unlessotherwise agreed in advance and in writing. We reserve the right to edit items for reasons of space, clarity or legality.

EnviroMedia Limited, 254a Bury New Road,Whitefield, Manchester, M45 8QN

Alex StaceyTel: 0161 3410158Fax: 0161 7668997Email: [email protected]

So Does Blue and Yellow Make Green? By Steve Grant Page 28

UK SDA ...the “green” economy takes shape... By Gage Williams OBE Pages 26 - 27

RainWater Harvesting and Flood Attenuation By Marcus Bicknell Pages 43 - 44

Could Water Ignite the Next War? By Dr Patricia Wouters Pages 30 - 31

Flood Risk - Recognition and Response By David Mole Pages 46 - 48

Unacceptable intake – when is a lot, ‘too much’? By Professor Paul Nathanail Pages 56 - 58

..Too Much Water, But Not Enough to Drink... By Steff Wright Pages 40 -42

The Flood and Water Management Act – is it enough to Pages 33 - 34turn the tide on future flooding? By Bob Sargent

Financing improved infrastructure resilience to natural Pages 36 - 38hazards during a recession By Ben Kidd

Innovation for Sustainable Contaminated Land and Pages 50- 54Ground Water Remediation By Dr Mike Lenn

St Leonard’s Court - Wake up call for developers and Pages 60 - 62 property owners By Keith Davidson & Lottie Dodd

Environment Agency Prosecutions Page 63

Pages 67 - 70 Over the Garden Fence By Trevor Renals


Pages 71 - 72 Organics Recycling Blossoms By Charlie Trousdell

Page 80 - 82 Sustainable Approach Called for as New Plastic Packaging Recycling Targets are Propsed By Stuart Foster

Pages 84 - 89 Futuresource Preview

Pages 74 - 76 Waste Shredding For Companies That Didn’t Think it Possible By Chris Oldfield

Pages 77 - 78 The Importance of Developing a Quality Protocol By Clem Spencer

Pages 91 - 93 What’s in a Name? By Marc Capancioni & John Febbraro

Pages 94 - 96 Train to get ahead By Max Linnemann

Pages 102 - 105 Reintroducing Vertebrates By Dr Derek Yalden

Pages 108 - 119 Case Studies

Pages 98 - 101 Time to Take the Risk Out of Energy By David Cockshott

Pages 106 - 107 Rapid Assessment of Marine Production By Tim Fileman & David Lowe

Page 120 Famous Last Words By Dr Keith Rutherford

Pages 64 - 65 Choose Your Weapon! By Stephen Blunt


NEWS

PUPILS UNVEIL AN OUTDOOR LEARNING AREA THEY DESIGNED IN SCHOOL

Chainsaw artist David Good creates agiant sundial which will be the centre-piece of a new learning area funded byTK Maxx.

Jack Berry (nine) unveils a learning areahe designed in school. He is joined byCressida Stevens from TK Maxx, whichfunded the area, and Geoff Sinclair fromthe Woodland Trust.

Cressida Stevens from TK Maxx joinsthe learning area's designer JackBerry next one of the 'chainsawartist's' creations.

Schoolchildren have visited the site of a new outdoorlearning area they designed in the classroom, which isbeing funded through the sale of plastic bags in a nationalclothing store chain.

The idea for the learning area was conceived by TK Maxx,which wished to bring local children closer to nature.Years four, five and six from Elmstead Primary School entered the competition - with the winning entry beingchosen by the Woodland Trust. Their design is now beingcreated in the charity’s new 105 acre wood at ElmsteadMarket, near Colchester.

On the day 30 children were joined by a chainsaw artist, whois creating a sun-dial at the centre of the classroom. Theyoungsters helped to plant some of the 1,500 hedge plants,which will form the perimeter of the new learning area.

The work with the school has been made possible by thegenerosity of TK Maxx, which is working in partnership withthe Woodland Trust. The store chain is directly funding 15acres of woodland after raising tens of thousands ofpounds by charging customers for plastic bags in store -leading to a 75% reduction in nationwide TK Maxx storeplastic bag use. The outdoor classroom consists of a sun-dial in the centre which is surrounded by 12 seats –

one for each hour. Each seat sits two children, so a classof 24 can take school lessons in the countryside.

The new learning area sits near the archaeological remains of a Neolithic hut and will nestle amongst thou-sands of newly planted trees which will grow up intomuch needed new woodland.

Jo Murphy, head of CSR at TK Maxx, which is part of TJXEurope, said: “We are committed to working with theWoodland Trust to build a better future for children. Theoutdoor learning area has been created by us as part ofour commitment to local communities and as part of ourenvironmental strategy to preserve native woodland. Weare delighted with the design of this outdoor classroomand hope that the children will really benefit from learningoutside with nature.”

TK Maxx began charging customers for core carrier bagsin August 2008 as part of its commitment to reducingwaste. The partnership began in 2004 when TK Maxxbegan recycling cards in store for the charity’s annualChristmas Card Recycling Scheme.


Oxford -based print firm Seacourt have just been awarded“The Sustainable Business of the Year 2010” at this year’sSustainability Live, the UK’s premier environmental event.

As part of the Environment and Energy Awards, and sponsored by organisations such as WRAP, BSi and AEAamongst others, these awards are now well recognised as industry standard awards, celebrating excellence andinnovation in sustainability.

Open to all companies across all industries, the awardsare always well-subscribed with over 100 entries in theSustainable Business category alone. Judging criteriawas based on recognising businesses or organisationswhich have taken their environmental, social and financialperformance to the next level, by mitigating impact whilst

using the sustainability agenda to gain competitive edge.The judges looked at the organisation’s strategy and performance within a number of areas including waste,transport, energy, carbon emissions, buildings, pollutioncontrol and stakeholder engagement. From a shortlist of5 companies, all were asked to present a case for theircompany. The category was one of 11 awards presentedthat evening.

Seacourt, quoted as a “Top 3 environmental printerworldwide” by a leading printing association, has won numerous national and European awards to date and is arecipient of The Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development.This award constitutes their 13th over the last 10 years.

SMALL FIRM TRAIL-BLAZES TO TOP SUSTAINABLE AWARD

Alun Cochrane (left), compareand comedian, and Tom Idle(right), Chair of the Awardsand Editor of SustainableBusiness Magazine, presentthe award for SustainableBusiness of the Year to Seacourt’s Chairman, JimDinnage at this year’s Environment and EnergyAwards 2010.


Following successful trials, municipal services providerVerdant has begun switching its vehicle fleet to run onbio-diesel. This will help reduce the overall carbon impactof its services, to which vehicle use makes a significantcontribution.

In March, 36 vehicles that service its recycling, refuse andcleansing contract for Arun District Council in West Sus-sex started using GD100 bio-diesel supplied by Green-erDiesel.

Verdant plans to roll out the initiative to other contractsthis year, including Swale and Norwich.

Fuel processor GreenerDiesel will supply Verdant witharound 800,000 litres annually of its GD100 cooking oil-based bio-diesel for these three contracts alone. The ve-hicles will also use engine lubricating oil made fromvegetable oil by Fuchs.

This bio-diesel produces no SO2 (sulphur dioxide), no netCO2 (carbon dioxide), has up to 20 times less CO (carbonmonoxide), reduces soot emissions by between 40% and60%, and also reduces polycyclic hydrocarbons (carcino-

gens). The initiative will reduce the carbon footprint ofevery Verdant vehicle using the biofuel by over 10%.

Verdant operates over 600 vehicles, ranging from 32tonne refuse / recycling collections vehicles to car-de-rived vans, across the 24 local authority contracts it serv-ices in England, Scotland and Wales.

Verdant began testing bio-diesel last May, initially withone 26 tonne RCV vehicle with a Euro 3 engine. After threemonths, a second RCV was added to the trial to evaluate ifbio-diesel would affect the Euro 4 engine. All outcomeswere positive over the seven month trial, with no increasein vehicle downtime nor any negative performance.

Group Fleet Manager Ian Coxhill said: “With such a largefleet, any operating efficiencies achieved will directly andpositively contribute to reducing our operational costs andour carbon footprint.

“Carbon reduction is an increasingly important issue forlocal authorities, and rolling out bio-diesel across ourlarge fleet will be highly relevant to our customers.”

VERDANT STARTS SWITCHING CONTRACT FLEETS TO BIO-DIESEL

RenewableUK 2010

– Programme summary now online

| 10 |ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

The Centre for Alternative Technology first installed itsPhotovoltaic (PV) roof over 15 years ago. When it was firstbuilt it was the largest PV array in the UK , covering up to112sq metres and generating up to 13.5 kilowatts. It hasprovided CAT with a clean, constant source of electricityever since. As of October 2006 the roof has produced2,885 KWH- enough energy to power eight houses andsaved over 14 tonnes of carbon emissions.

Unfortunately over the last few years the frame on whichthe PV panels are mounted has deteriorated. But thanksto neighbouring company Dulas, the roof is getting a revamp and the PV panels remounted using new tech-nology in order to enable the solar panels to carry onproducing electricity.

Ian Draisey , Director at Dulas said, “The work of CAT isvital in informing, inspiring and enabling practical solutionsfor sustainable living. We have been delighted to lend a

hand in repairing the solar roof and giving this valuableresource a new lease of life .”

Dulas , which is based in Machynlleth , is a world-renowned renewable energy company. Dulas started 28years ago as part of the Centre for Alternative Technologybut has since gone on to become its own company withexpertise in biomass, wind energy, solar, and hydro in-stallations. Dulas have begun work on the PV roof at CATto replace the old frame, donating materials and time forfree.

Kate Blair at CAT said, “ We are enormously grateful toDulas for their help. Dulas and CAT enjoy a long-standingrelationship and it is fantastic that they have offeredtheir expertise to redo the PV roof ahead of the openingof our new eco-educational facility the Wales Institute forSustainable Education.”

CAT GETS A NEW ROOF


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A team of three British explorers described as ‘theworld’s toughest’ reached the North Geographic Poletoday ending a gruelling 60 day scientific survey acrossthe floating sea ice of the Arctic Ocean.

The Catlin Arctic Survey’s headquarters in London wascontacted at 2050 hours (BST) by team leader AnnDaniels and her colleagues Martin Hartley and CharliePaton to say they had completed their survey work asthey reached the Pole.

The team has been collecting water and marine lifesamples from beneath the floating sea ice as part of theexpedition's leading edge science programme which isassessing the impact of CO² absorbtion on the ocean andits marine life – a process known as ocean acidification.

Their celebrations could not begin until they had takenthe last samples through a hole drilled manuallythrough the ice at the North Pole.

“We called it our Hole at the Pole,” said Ann Daniels.“Getting the science work done has always been our toppriority but it is absolutely fantastic to reach the Pole aswell. We’re ecstatic.”

Speaking from Catlin Arctic Survey's headquarters inLondon, the Survey Director and explorer Pen Hadowdescribed the team’s achievement as extraordinary. “It’snot possible to imagine what this team has had to do topull off this extreme survey. I consider them to be theworld’s toughest to have done this. Together they’re the

face of modern exploration helping to advance the understanding of scientists and the public alike abouthow the natural world works.”

The three explorers have travelled over 483 miles (777kilometres) since March 14th but to reach the Pole havehad to increase the amount of trekking time each day.They made it with only hours to spare before a Twin Otterplane was scheduled to land on the ice to collect them.

Commenting on the harsh conditions Ann Daniels said;“It has been an unbelievably hard journey over the ice.Conditions have been unusually tough and at times veryfrustrating with a frequent southerly drift pushing usbackwards every time we camped for the night. On topof that we’ve had to battle into head-winds and swimacross large areas of dangerously thin ice and openwater.”

The Catlin Arctic Survey 2010 is a unique collaborationbetween marine biologists, oceanographers and polarexplorers to get vital science field work done which hasnot proved possible until now.

The expedition is sponsored by Catlin Group Limited,the international specialty insurer and reinsurer. ChiefExecutive Stephen Catlin said, “It’s great news that theteam has completed such an extensive survey andreached the North Pole. Their effort to obtain data thatcan help to forecast the risk posed by our changing environment is truly impressive.”

EXPLORERS REACH NORTH POLE AFTER 60-DAY SURVEY TREK

© www.martinhartley.com

Charlie Paton, Martin Hartley andAnn Daniels, aka ‘The Explorer Team’

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Accoya®wood, the world’sleading high technologywood, formed part of thelargest show garden ever at the2010 RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The garden, entitled ‘Places of Change’was an ambitious collaboration between na-tional housing and regeneration delivery agency, theHomes and Communities Agency (HCA), the Eden Proj-ect, national membership charity for frontline homeless-ness agencies Homeless Link, and Communities andLocal Government (CLG).

The garden was developed by homeless people rightacross the country, with the project aiming to challengestereotypes around homelessness. This partnershipbuilds on the success of the silver medal award-winningKey Garden at Chelsea in 2009 which saw collaborationfrom 20 homeless agencies and 200 homeless serviceusers involved at all stages of the Garden’s development.Participants involved consistently reported a huge confidence boost, new skills, and renewed hope for theirfuture.

The ‘Places of Change’ garden was 3 times the size of the2009 Key Garden. The raised bed planters, a bench, compost bins and decking in the Garden were made ofAccoya® wood, which combines outstanding durabilityand dimensional stability with the virtues of fast growing,sustainable wood. As a highly durable wood, Accoya® willlast at least 50 years above ground and 25 years in contactwith or below ground. Designed by the Eden Project’saward-winning garden designer, Paul Stone, in collabo-ration with Roderick James Architects LLP, BCHA, LookAhead Housing and Care, SHYPP (Herefordshire SupportedHousing for Young People), Stonham Home Group, NOAHEnterprise, Architecture sans Frontières-UK, ProvidenceRow Housing Association and Crisis Skylight.

Tony, 44 years old, Carpenter at St Mungo’s WoodWorksworkshop, London said before the show: “If the St Mungo’s

WoodWorks workshop closeddown, I don’t knowwhere I’d be. It’s turned mylife around after I was homelessfor 15 years. It’s interesting workingwith a different type of wood on this projectand making things I don’t usually make likecompost bins and planters, where I’m used tobuilding furniture for hostels. Just knowing that thepieces I have constructed will be in one of the gardens atthe Chelsea Flower Show makes me really proud andgives me such a buzz. I’ll be watching the telly every nightof the show hoping to see my pieces!”

The Accoya® wood team worked with homelessnesscharity St Mungo’s to construct the Accoya® wood items.The items were crafted in WoodWorks, the St Mungo’swood workshop in Westminster, where homeless peopledevelop new skills that will enable them to move on tofurther training and qualifications to help turn their livesaround long-term. The Accoya® wood items were locatedin the themed zones of the garden: Zone A, The Food zoneand Zone D, the Industrial zone.

Paul Stone, The Eden Project’s award-winning garden designer said: “The RHS is trying hard to make sure theChelsea Flower Show is more sustainable and what we aredoing in the Eden Project garden is true to this objective.

ACCOYA® WOOD SHOWCASING IN BIGGEST SHOWGARDEN EVER AT 2010 RHS CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW


We chose to use Accoya® as it is a sustainable, high performance wood that can be used in-ground as well as above ground. Not only is it FSC certified but it is also durable, attractive and

extremely versatile, meaning that we can use it across a wide variety of applications inour garden. The fact that it is non-toxic and recyclable adds to its credentials as the

perfect wood for a sustainable garden.”

Paul Clegg, CEO of Accsys, the company behind Accoya® wood, commented:“We are delighted to be involved with creating such a spectacular show garden

at the Chelsea Flower Show. The carpentry skills and knowledge requiredto construct the garden furniture and decking provide a great training

opportunity to nurture talent and support employment prospects forall the individuals taking part. Accoya wood has many qualities but

it is specifically its Class 1 durability that makes it suitable foruse in landscaping and outdoor furniture.”

The Places of Change Garden will offered more opportunities for the visitor to explore and discover the

stories and individual “places of change” of the people taking part. It featured a number of desig-

nated zones such as crops and food; forestryand leisure; medicine and health; industry

and manufacture; and conservation andthe environment; all of which acted as

a metaphor for new skills and thejourney embarked on by the

individual to get there. Theoverall impression was one

of craft and enterpriseand the importance

of teamwork.

An artist’s impression of the garden


HELVETA SECURES £5M INVESTMENT IN FUNDING

Helveta Ltd, the provider of supply chain intelligence soft-ware, CI World(tm), recently announced the completion ofa £5m equity financing. The round was led by BeCapital,with Carbon Trust joining as a new investor and continuedsupport coming from existing investors Albion Ventures,Oxford Capital Partners and Succès Europe.

The investment underpins Helveta's rapid expansion in itskey geographic markets worldwide. Helveta's CI Worldsupply chain intelligence functionality enables public andprivate sector users in the forest and food products indus-tries to provide full traceability and compliance verifica-tion capability for assets moving along global supplychains. In the forestry sector CI World is the only proventechnology to provide automated Chain of Custody (CoC)management, Legality Assurance System (LAS) functionalityand pro-active compliance with new US Lacey Act and European Union Due Diligence Regulation timber importlegislation.

CI World is being used to monitor in excess of 2.7mhectares of forest across the Congo and Amazon basinsand in South East Asia. Recent major contract wins includenational timber traceability and compliance validationsystems in the Democratic Republic of Congo andCameroon. Once deployed, these systems will increasesignificantly the total forest area monitored using Helvetatechnology. CI World is rapidly becoming the supply chaingovernance software platform of choice with countriesbecoming involved in the EU's Forest Law EnforcementGovernance and Trade (FLEGT) process.

Recently, Ghana became the first country to sign up totreaty commitments under FLEGT. As a result the Ghanaiangovernment has selected Helveta to implement a LegalityAssurance System for its timber sector.

CLIMATE THREATENS TROUT AND SALMON Trout and salmon are among the world’s most familiarfreshwater fishes, but numbers have fallen over recentdecades – in some areas, dramatically.

Pollution, habitat loss and over-fishing have all beenblamed in the past, but new evidence from Cardiff Univer-sity shows that climate change could be a major factor,putting both species at risk.

The scientists studied populations of young salmon andtrout in the River Wye in Wales, traditionally one of theUK’s best angling rivers. Professor Steve Ormerod andcolleagues from the Cardiff School of Biosciences foundsalmon numbers fell by 50% and trout numbers by 67%between 1985 and 2004 - even though the river itself became cleaner.

The fish were hit hardest following hot, dry summerssuch as 1990, 2000 and 2003. The results suggest thatwarmer water and lower river levels combine to affectboth species. As both trout and salmon favour cool water,they face potentially major problems if climate warming

continues as expected in the next two to three decades.

“Huge efforts have been put into bringing salmon backinto Europe’s formerly polluted rivers such as the Taff,Thames, Clyde, Seine and Rhine, so these results are amajor worry,” said Professor Ormerod.

“Salmon and trout fishing also generate many jobs andlarge economic benefits. In Wales alone, salmon fishingcontributes around £90 million annually. Any risk of even-tually losing these species to climate warming is thereforeone we must consider very seriously. We suggest measuresto ensure that river levels are maintained in hotter condi-tions alongside the use of riverside trees to create shadeand protect against the highest temperatures."

The Cardiff team used data on fish population collectedeach year by the Environment Agency at more than 50 locations throughout the Wye. Stream temperatures increased over the study period by 0.5 – 0.7ºC in summerand 0.7 - 1.0ºC in winter, with the latter effects apparentlyaffecting the fish at low flow. Water temperature is knownto affect growth and susceptibility to disease, while lowerwater levels restrict their access to cooler habitats.


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©Neville Kemp

A scientific expedition to a pristine wilderness oncedubbed “The Lost World” by Western media has revealeda stunning diversity of spectacular species, many of whichare believed to be new to science, Conservation International(CI) and the National Geographic Society announced recently, during a week that will mark the 2010 Interna-tional Day for Biological Diversity.

The array of new species, which include several newmammals, a reptile, an amphibian, no fewer than twelveinsects, and the remarkable discovery of a new bird, wasfound by a collaborative team of international and Indone-sian scientists participating in Conservation International’sRapid Assessment Program (RAP), which explored In-donesia’s remote Foja Mountains on the island of NewGuinea in late 2008.

The biologists on this expedition endured torrential rainstorms and life-threatening flash floods as they trackedspecies from the low foothills at Kwerba village to the topof the range at 2,200 meters (7,200 feet), reporting notablediscoveries that included a bizarre spike-nosed tree frog;an oversized, but notably tame, woolly rat; a gargoyle-like,bent-toed gecko with yellow eyes; an imperial pigeon; anda tiny forest wallaby, the smallest member of the kangaroofamily documented in the world.

The frog (Litoria sp. nov.), which was observed to have along, Pinocchio-like protuberance on its nose that pointsupwards when the male is calling but deflates and pointsdownwards when he is less active, represents a particularlydistinctive find that scientists are interested in documentingand studying further. Its discovery was a happy accident,

Scientists discovera treasure trove ofnew species


© Tim Laman/National Geographic

© Tim Laman/National Geographic

after herpetologist Paul Oliver spotted it sitting on a bagof rice in the campsite.

Other discoveries recorded during the RAP survey includeda new blossom bat (Syconycteris sp. nov) which feeds onrainforest nectar, a small new tree-mouse (Pogonomyssp. nov.), a new black and white butterfly (Ideopsis fojana)related to the common monarch, and a new floweringshrub (Ardisia hymenandroides). Images of the never-before-seen animals were captured by National Geographicmagazine photographer Tim Laman.

In addition to the new kangaroo-related dwarf wallaby(Dorcopsulus sp. nov.), scientists obtained the first photo-graphs of a free-ranging individual of the extremely raregolden-mantled tree-kangaroo, which is critically threat-ened by hunting in other parts of New Guinea.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the expedition camewhen ornithologist Neville Kemp spotted a pair of newimperial pigeons (Ducula sp. nov.) with feathers that appear rusty, whitish, and gray. This novel imperial pigeonwas seen no fewer than four times by scientists, yet over-looked on previous surveys, which could indicate a verylow population.

This November 2008 expedition (www.conservation.org/foja)was conducted with financial and scientific support fromthe National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institution,and Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and marked areturn visit to a mountainous region recognized by scien-tists as a profound species generator because of its relative isolation, elevation, and tropical environment.


World leaders have failed to deliver commitments madein 2002 to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by2010, and have instead overseen alarming biodiversity declines. These findings are the result of a new paperpublished in the leading journal Science and representthe first assessment of how the targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) havenot been met.

Compiling over 30 indicators – measures of different aspects of biodiversity, including changes in species’ populations and risk of extinction, habitat extent andcommunity composition – the study found no evidence for a significant reduction in the rate of decline of biodi-versity, and that the pressures facing biodiversity continue

to increase. The synthesis provides overwhelming evidencethat the 2010 target has not been achieved.

The study recognised that there have been some importantlocal or national successes in tackling biodiversity loss,including the designation of many protected areas (e.g.the 20,000 km2 Juruena National Park in Brazil), the recovery of particular species (e.g. European Bison) andthe prevention of some extinctions (e.g. Black Stilt of New Zealand).

But despite these encouraging achievements, efforts toaddress the loss of biodiversity need to be substantiallystrengthened, and sustained investment in coherentglobal biodiversity monitoring and indicators is essentialto track and improve the effectiveness of these responses.

WORLD GOVERNMENTS FAIL TO DELIVER ON 2010 BIODIVERSITY TARGET

Branston Ltd, a leading potato supplier, wonthe Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyor’s(RICS) East Midlands Sustainability awardfor its new prepared foods factory in Lincolnshire.

The factory was completed in May last yearand it now shares resources with the mainfactory next door at its site in Branston nearLincoln. It already benefits from the company’snew water recycing facility and will soonutilise energy that has been generated on-site by the company’s anaerobic digestion(AD) plant.

The 2,500m2 prepared foods factory was designed to maximise efficiencies and reduceany waste produced by the company. Thiswas in line with Branston’s strategy of “lowcarbon = low cost”. The project team investi-gated a wide range of environmental initiativesprior to designing the factory, and selectedthe most cost-effective solutions for thelong term.

Winning team: Mark Wilcox, Branston development director, Robert Peto RICS president, Vidyanath Gururajan (Vee), project director, Branston.

Atkins Appointed to National Ecology Framework

The Environment Agency has contracted Atkins toprovide expert ecological advice in freshwater ecologyand conservation management across England andWales. Atkins has been appointed to the national Eco-logical Services Framework Lot 1 which relates toaquatic and terrestrial ecology. Atkins will draw onexpertise from across its water and environment business to increase the effectiveness of the monitoringand interpretation of the ecology of aquatic systems.This will include expert advice on habitat managementand restoration, biodiversity action plans and protectedand non-native species. The framework runs for twoyears with the possibility of extension for a further twoone-year contracts.

McDonald’s Awarded The Carbon Trust Standard

McDonald’s has been awarded The Carbon TrustStandard for reducing its carbon footprint in the UK.This achievement recognises the steps McDonald’shas taken to strengthen its commitment to the environment. The prestigious Carbon Trust Standardis awarded to organisations which reduce their carbon emissions and demonstrate good carbonmeasurement and management. McDonald’s reducedits carbon emissions by around 4.5% between 2007and 2009 – equating to over 14% carbon reductionper £ sales. This reduction is based on measuringthe energy consumption (gas and electricity) of allrestaurants and offices in the UK.


SHOP QUICKLY WITH A CONSCIENCE

A small Eco Fashion brand from the Isle of Wight hasmade it easy and convenient for customers to find outwhere their clothing comes from and how it is made;traceability that is years ahead of the industry.

The brand says that it’s not that people don’t care, it’s justthey don’t know, and believe that talking to customersmore is key to sustainability. The result is an interactivemap format with images, video, facts and figures whereshoppers can investigate the complete product lifecycleon page, “packaged simply so that consumers can shopquickly with a conscience.”

Rapanui, based on the Isle of Wight, was founded bybrothers Rob and Martin Drake-Knight in early 2008 andits two young directors have been nominated for countlesssustainability and entrepreneurial awards.

The brand’s website also hosts a live Wikipedia style re-source packed with information about their supply chain,where consumers can find out where clothing comesfrom, how it is made and ask questions on anything –

from planting the seed to stacking on the shelf.

“So far eco-fashion has been about new fabrics and newways of manufacturing. We think sustainability is aboutdesigning new ways of businesses communicating withconsumers, opening up a dialogue with consumers ratherthan talking at them. Our traceability technology allowsus to do that and allows the market forces of demand andsupply to work for sustainability”, said Rob.

Rapanui make clothes out of organic natural fabrics in awind powered factory audited by the Fairwear Foundation.As well as reaching the finals of the Enterprising YoungBrit awards and Sustainable Business Awards, Rapanuihas recently been nominated for the ISPO Brand Newaward, international recognition for their eco-marketingmodel.

“If we can inform and educate people as to where clothingcomes from and how it is made they can make informeddecisions as shoppers. As a brand, if we can mix eco withtrend and inspire people to think about the environment inwider lifestyle choices, we will have done our job”, said Mart.

Chempolis recently commissioned a biorefinery for pro-cessing non-food biomass into cellulosic ethanol in Ouluin northern Finland. The new line was officially opened bythe Finnish Prime Minister, Matti Vanhanen, on 4th May.

Chempolis’ unique third-generation formico® technologiescan convert a wide range of non-food biomass generatedas agricultural by-products, such as straw and bagasse,into bioethanol, biochemicals, and papermaking fibresboth cost-effectively and sustainably. formico® processesare self-sufficient in terms of their energy requirementand produce no greenhouse emissions, and their closed-loop circulation system minimises water consumption.

The two key members of Chempolis' technology familyare formicobio™ for producing bioethanol and formicofib™for producing papermaking fibre. Depending on the needsof its customers, Chempolis can license these and otherprocesses, and supply key equipment, as well as plantengineering, procurement, and commissioning services.

Chempolis has invested some €20 million in its new bio-refinery, which also functions as a development and mar-keting centre for testing customer-sourced raw materialsand producing sample batches of bioethanol, biochemicals,and papermaking fibres. The plant is capable of processing25,000 t/a of non-wood and non-food raw material.

CHEMPOLIS STARTS UP THIRD-GENERATION BIOREFINERY FOR PRODUCING CELLULOSIC ETHANOL

For the 7th time, America’s leadingconference for renewable energy financiersand developers returns to New York• Meet decision-makers – in 2009,

over 70% of attendees held the title of CEO, CFO, President, Managing Director or Partner

• Hear from thought leaders – over 50 leading investors, developers and government officials will address the delegation

• Make your projects bankable with advice from global leaders in financing and developing of renewable energy projects

• Understand the impact of new and existing federal policies on your renewable energy projects

www.reffwallstreet.comEmail: [email protected] Call: (US) +1 212 224 3789 (UK) +44 20 7779 8999


Could an open source hydrogen carchange the motor industry? We are often introduced to the idea of the ‘car of tomorrow’,but there is one company that is not only trying to changethe cars we drive, but how they are built and how themotor industry works as a whole.

Riversimple’s hydrogen fuel cell electric car boasts fuelconsumption the equivalent to 300 miles per gallon andcarbon emissions of just 30g, but that isn’t the most unusual thing about it. What makes Riversimple stand out from the crowd is its move away from the traditionalcar design process by throwing the door open to the restof the world.

By releasing their designs under an open source licence,Riversimple want other people to add new ideas and buildon their designs. The concept is that by asking the crowdto contribute, new technologies will be incorporated morequickly, innovation will be speedier and more needs willbe met, all resulting in a car that works for people as opposed to markets. This is exactly the approach that theIdeas in Transit project believes is necessary if the worldis to address the grand challenges of sustainability anddwindling resources.

Riversimple was founded by Hugo Spowers, an engineerand entrepreneur with a former career in designing andbuilding racing cars. Spowers believes that given the

huge gap between the environmental performance of carsand what is sustainable, the competitive market willnever bridge it. As such only an open source approach cancome close to the rapid and constant improvement thatthe world’s environmental situation requires.

But even turning the whole design process on its headisn’t enough. Riversimple also wants us to question thewhole idea of car ownership, with vehicles that are leasedand not sold. As such it believes car clubs will become akey customer, which have in themselves seen demandrapidly increase in recent years.

The leasing will include maintenance, fuel and the recyclingof the car at the end of its life. All of this helps enforce theidea of sustainability in design and creation on the manu-facturer, who will have ultimate responsibility for the carat the end of its life. All very different to how we thinkabout cars today, where manufactures arguably have nolong term incentive to ensure longevity, low running costsor sustainability.

Riversimple cars are expected to be on trial in the UKfrom 2012. Around 50 cars will be leased in one or twocities, supported by the local authority, with several havingalready expressing an interest.

Find out more about Ideas in Transit at www.ideasintransit.org

Learn more about Riversimple at www.riversimple.com

www.dundee.ac.uk/lifesciences/

National Water Law: Professional Training

Two week professional training modules available in Comparative National Water Law and Regulation of Water Services modules. Academic assessment week additionally available for both.

Water Law Water Leaders Summer ProgrammeThe Comparative National Water Law and Regulation of Water Services modules provide the national

water law content for the Water Law Water Leaders (WLWL) Programme, which is developing a new

generation of local water leaders to achieve locally controlled solutions to water issues globally.

National Water Law and Regulation – This module focuses on legal frameworks for integrated water

resource management and good governance of water, water rights, abstraction controls and water

pollution and quality. The module starts on 12 July 2010 for two weeks.

Regulation of Water Services – This module focuses on legal frameworks for water services i.e. water

supply, waste and sanitation. It looks at service standards, economic and social regulation and governance

of water services in both the public and private sectors. The module starts on 2 August for two weeks.

The price of each module is £1,600 (£2,000 with academic assessment).

Who should attend

These modules will benefit anyone concerned with national water law, especially water resources

experts, students, lawyers, scientists, engineers, civil servants, policy makers, regulators, water

suppliers and staff of non-governmental organizations.

Selected speaker• Alan Sutherland, Chief Executive of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland

To join the symposiumNational Water Law and Regulation: www.dundee.ac.uk/ad/nationalwaterRegulation of Water Services: www.dundee.ac.uk/ad/waterservicesor please visit www.dundee.ac.uk/water for full details.

Further information, please contact symposium course leaderDr Sarah Hendry • Dundee UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy & Science •

Graduate School of Natural Resources Law, Policy & Management • College of Arts & Social Sciences •

University of Dundee • Dundee DD1 4HN

Tel +44 (0) 1382 386473 • Fax +44 (0) 1382 388671 • [email protected] Ju

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With the introduction of any new legislation or technology,there will always be individuals and organisations thatestablish a full understanding of the associated implica-tions faster than others; for everyone else, it can clearlypay big dividends to gain the full benefit of this knowledgeas quickly and cheaply as possible, rather than wait forit to evolve in-house – if at all.

The environment is a particular case in point with bothlegislation and relatively “mysterious” technology con-spiring to make the once straightforward art of buildinghomes an increasingly complex and technically chal-lenging task as the construction industry strives tocome to terms with changes to Building Regulations,codes such as the Code for Sustainable Homes, andBREEAM assessments. These present a challenge tothe unwary on at least three levels, namely how best toachieve the required environmental performance, howbest to select and integrate the various technology options,and how to meet the associated assessment criteria.

Not to mention money! With the end result needing tobe affordable alongside local market housing, and ideallycheaper, there will clearly be a competitive advantagefor developers who can evolve a strategy for makingtheir new better-performing properties cheaper in realterms than their environmentally under-performingpredecessors. And for many smaller developers, thismight only be possible by calling on expertise outsidethe business.

Taking a case in point, on 15 July 2009, Ed Miliband, theSecretary of State for the Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) announced a two tier system ofsubsidies for Renewable Energy, with large installationsof over 5-MW installed capacity continuing to receiveRenewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) for theirelectricity, whilst installations under 5-MW would receivefrom April 2010 a range of Feed-in-Tariffs (FITs). Theseare designed to ensure that small domestic installationsof different types (solar PV, wind, hydro etc) can competein terms of pay-back time with larger systems.

Further, from Apr 2011 a range of Renewable Heat

Incentives (RHIs) would be introduced to reward renew-able heat in a similar way to the proposed FITs. Responsesto the DECC FIT paper were submitted by 15 October2009, with a consultation paper on the RHIs likely to beissued early in the new Parliament to prepare people forthe RHI introduction in 2011.

Taken together, FITs and RHIs will make it a practicalproposition to build more value into a new home thanthe extra costs incurred in doing so; however, if this doesnot significantly affect the selling price of the property inits local market then the additional costs of meetingnew-build CO2 performance requirements would representa straightforward loss from the developer’s perspective.And this despite the new home-owner going on to enjoya tax-free income for 25-years, through the FITs and RHIspayments, that might easily be worth the equivalent of a£100,000-cash investment. Clearly not a very sustainablebusiness model from the developer’s point of view!

On a macro level, one approach to meeting the developer’szero-carbon obligations might be through establishing alink with a large-scale renewable energy installation.For these, the Government is introducing a new planningprocess for installations of over 50-MW as these areviewed as being of national importance. They will there-fore go before an independent panel of experts for thefinal approval, rather than the decision being made atcounty or district level. We can therefore expect mostwind-farms to be at least 50-MW in order to by-pass theuncertainties of local planning processes.

While the new arrangements can be seen as an erosionof the democratic process, it can also be argued as beingessential if the Government is to meet its EU imposedclimate change target of moving from about 1.5% Re-newable Energy to 15% by 2020. The policy will helpachieve two other strategic aims, namely to achievegreater energy self-sufficiency, and to help meet anidentified mid-term shortfall in national power generationcaused by the closure of a large number of first genera-tion nuclear power stations and old, and dirty, coal powered stations.

… the “green”economy takesshape …

UK-SDA


Gage Williams OBE, a former infantrybrigadier, is a director of the RenewableEnergy Office for Cornwall and hasgiven independent advice to the county,major utility companies, estate ownersand recently the National Trust on howthey can benefit from switching to renewable energy.

The financial numbers around such developments areimpressive. The modern 2.5-MW turbines, in an areawith average windspeeds in excess of 7m/sec, shouldachieve a capacity factor of around 32%. On this basisthe energy generated in an average year can be calculatedas around 140,000-MWh (ie 20-turbines x 2.5-MW x 32%x 365 x 24). With each MWh receiving a single ROC, worthabout £50, to which can be added the wholesale pricepaid by the Grid which should be at least another £50.

On this basis, a 50-MW wind-farm might generate grossrevenues of around £14,000,000-pa and generate netprofits before corporation tax of approaching £9,000,000- pa. Under Phase 3 of the EU’s Emissions TradingScheme, the developer may also be able to claim tradablecarbon credits currently worth €14/ton on the 67,000-tonspa of CO2 saved to earn a further £840,000 pa. Wherepermitted, by buying into an appropriate percentage ofsuch a scheme, a developer might satisfy the CO2 re-quirements of their project, whilst retaining the benefitof the resulting income stream.

If the CO2 requirements of a project must be met on-site,or close to it, then similar calculations can be based onrenewables technologies such as smaller-scale windturbines, solar heating, solar pv, ground and air sourceheat pumps, rainwater harvesting, and biomass com-munity heat and power plants. These calculations, onmost projects, reach the same well-founded conclusionthat meeting CO2 requirements on new-build homes,when supported by FITs and RHIs can be a revenue generator for the developer, rather than a loss-maker,subject to three simple guidelines:

Use the right mix of technologies to meet the site’senvironmental requirements

Select the right products at the right price

Retain the benefit of the resulting revenue streams,to compensate profitably for the additional capitalcosts

Although straightforward in theory, these “rules” maybe harder to apply in practice, demanding skills and

knowledge not necessarily available in-house; and notevery house-builder may wish to become a utilities broker. However, the above examples do start to give a glimpse of the burgeoning “green” economy of the future, often promised by politicians, in which a thrivingrenewables manufacturing sector makes it possible fordevelopers to produce high-performance new homes,that are warmer and more comfortable for the home-owner, with the additional build-costs funded by the future energy and heat to be created by the installedrenewables technologies. All backed by a new industrysector that finances, monitors and manages these technologies and the revenues that flow from them.

For further information see www.uk-sda.org



Recent news stories from around the world have pickedup the “water wars” discourse again. In our lifetime morethan one half of us will face water shortages, according toa proliferation of reports on this topic. National govern-ments, global policy organisations, the UN, and even theprivate sector are concerned about how to address theemerging water crisis. History tells us that our future willbe shaped in large part by how we manage this scarce resource. Are we prepared to tackle this pressing challengeand what legacy will we pass to our children?

While water is managed primarily at the local level, recentregional concerns over shared transboundary watershave elevated the issue in complex ways, including withrespect to the scale of the problem - one could now speakof the globalisation of the great water challenge. Further-more, the water-energy-food nexus looms as the perfectstorm on our common horizon, a point underlined by theUK Government Chief Scientist, John Beddington. This explains the current uptake of the problem by the WorldEconomic Forum, and supports also the growing reach of the UN in water-related activities.

From a legal point of view, the issue has been under-studied;what is most notable is the lack of trans-disciplinarity inthe formulation of not only solutions but also conceptualapproaches to the problem. There is also a lack of innova-tive interfacing of the various streams of legal disciplinaryexpertise – and a need for creative approaches to weavingtogether the “rule of law” notion across areas of sub-disciplinary expertise in law (i.e. public international andcomparative national law). Thus, the world water problemcould be considered more holistically through the prismof the UN Charter and its cornerstone principles - themaintenance of international peace and security, andensuring the fundamental freedoms for all. From this

viewpoint (a meta-normative approach), could we notconsider the management of the world’s freshwater re-sources as a catalyst for peace, and not a cause for war?Yes, but…

The potential for conflict over water grows. In Central Asia,Uzbekistan continues to express its concern regarding theproposed upstream development of a major dam in Tajik-istan; Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need water for irrigation,while the Tajiks and Kyrgyz are keen to develop additionalhydropower. In Africa, where more than a dozen countriesalready experience water stress and double that numberare forecasted to join their ranks within a decade, the impasse over the Nile continues. Egypt has refused (again)to sign the Nile Framework Co-operation Agreement withsome government officials prepared to go to war over thematter, worried about water shortages (The Guardian, 26April 2010). In Asia, some of the world’s major rivers sup-plied by the Himalayan water towers, serving vast popula-tions in China, India, and South-east Asia, already sufferfrom diminishing quantities and qualities of flow and thisthreatens regional peace and security. Similar challengesare faced right across the globe, as detailed in the IPPCClimate change report on water. With more than 260major watercourses criss-crossing sovereign nationsaround the world, serving more than 70% of the world’spopulations and supporting critical eco-systems – theglobal water problem could not be more evident. And it isall about competition between a range of stakeholders foran increasingly scarce resource. Will the most powerfulplayers always win?

In times of deepening uncertainty, economic turmoil, andrapid change, what is the relevance and role of water lawin addressing the global water challenge? Apart fromcontributing to added clarity during such complex times

Dr Patricia Wouters, Director Dundee UNESCO IHP-HELP Centrefor Water Law, Policy and Science, is a professor of internationalwater law. She heads a research team of water lawyers, scientistsand political scientists at the University of Dundee.

Could water ignite the next war?


by defining “the rules of the game”, water law is foundedupon those core values at the heart of rule of law - to ensure a free, just and peaceful society. While this mightsound rather lofty, upon reflection, is this not the veryessence of the discipline? And given the critical importanceof water to the economic, social, and environmental wel-fare, should we not try to join up our thinking on this moreeffectively? Indeed, law is not a panacea to resolving theworld water crisis, but it is too often a missing link, or apost-factum consideration or static bolt-on to politicaland technical solutions. We need a more dynamic interfaceacross a range of frontiers if we are to be effectivelyequipped to meet the crucial challenges of this brave newworld. Let us find and implement best practice around theglobe based on notions of hydro-diplomacy and hydro-solidarity.

At the University of Dundee, we are attempting to makeour contribution to addressing the global water crisisthrough our integrated research and under our WaterLaw, Water Leaders graduate programme. We need moregood people in the water sector – our future dependsupon it. We must all be committed to uncovering newpathways to ensuring “water for all”.

Selected References

UN Charter

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses ofInternational Watercourses, UN Doc. A/51/869 (21 May 1997)

United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Reportof the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges andChange, Doc. A/59/565 (2004).

Sharing Transboundary Waters— An Integrated Assessment of EquitableEntitlement: The Legal Assessment Model, IHP-VI, Technical Docu-ments in Hydrology no. 74, UNESCO (2005),<http://unesdoc.unesco.org/>.

Out of the Mainstream. Water Rights, Politics and Identity, R. Boelen, D.Getches and A. Guevara-Gil (2010, Earthscan)

Science, Policy and Stakeholders in Water Management: An IntegratedApproach to River Basin Management, G. Gooch and P. Stålnacke. (2010,Earthscan)

Transforming Potential Conflict into Cooperation Potential: The Role ofInternational Water Law (2003), http://unesdoc. unesco.org/

Taming the Anarachy. Groundwater Governance in South Asia, TushaarShah, (2009, RFF press)

The Guardian, “Egypt must negotiate on Nile water”, Joseph Mayton ((26April 2010)

The Journal of Water Law. Special Issue: Promoting Water for All – Cur-rent Issues of International and National Water Law (forthcoming, June2010).

The Rule of Law, Tom Bingham (2010, Allen Lane)

Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization, StevenSolomon, (2010; HarperCollins).

Water Security: Global, regional and local challenges, IPPR policy brief(May 2010).

June 21-24, 2010 Dundee UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy & Sci-ence will host 40 international delegates at the International Law andTransboundary Freshwaters Symposium and Workshop 2010. Which willdiscuss global, national and regional strategies for promoting securityand sustainability within a rapidly changing world

The event is organised jointly with Regional Centre on Urban WaterManagement-Tehran (under the auspices of UNESCO)

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Primary legislation regarding water management is a veryrare event, so we should all be grateful that the Governmentwas able to push through the Flood and Water ManagementAct in its dying days before the May election. It was atremendous effort by all involved to get it enacted butdoes it really take us much further forward? It’s worthlooking at the detail to see just what difference it willmake to the environment.

The Act is a further response to the Pitt Review of the2007 floods. The Review highlighted some basic problemswith the management of flooding in England (the Act alsoapplies in modified form to Wales), some of which requiredlegislation to change. To the previous Government’scredit, it responded very positively to the Review and theAct seeks to implement most of the remaining recom-mendations it made. The Act also seeks to change someaspects of the water industry, some of which were identified by the Cave and Walker reviews into innovationand competitiveness.

So what does the Act seek to achieve for flood management?One key focus is Pitt’s Recommendation 28:

“Forthcoming flooding legislation should be a single uni-fying Act that addresses all sources of flooding, clarifiesresponsibilities and facilitates flood risk management.”

As a step towards this, the Act places responsibilities onupper tier local authorities to take a more active role inlocal flood management and produce local flood riskstrategies. The Environment Agency gains a role in pro-viding a strategic overview of the local authority plan andalso a duty to create a National Flood and Coastal ErosionRisk Management Strategy, which a number of organisa-tions will have to follow.

These measures will address some of the gaps in floodmanagement that Pitt recognised but the expansion of therole of local authorities, whilst welcome, will be difficult toimplement given the restrictions on finance and shortageof skilled staff in key areas. The Act fails to provide anyclear income stream for local authorities to carry out themany roles that have been identified for them. Without ad-equate funding, one has to question how well these rolescan be implemented.

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Management Act – is it

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Bob Sargent – Director, Water Environment

Hyder Consulting (UK) Ltd.

Bob Sargent BSc, CSCi, CEnv, MBA, FCIWEM,MCIM

Bob has worked in the areas of water qualityregulation and environmental policy for the last25 years.He is Past President of the CharteredInstitution of Water and Environmental Manage-ment and is a member of the EnvironmentAgency’s Regional Environmental Protection Advisory Committee. He is recognised and an international expert in surface runoff, floodingand habitat enhancement in response to climatechange impacts and regularly presents on theseissues.

Bob heads up the Water Environment team forHyder Consulting (UK) Ltd.


Another key focus is control of flooding from surfacewater, i.e. runoff from heavy rainfall onto urban surfaces.Surface water flooding has been steadily climbing theflooding agenda in recent years. It was a feature ofDEFRA’s water strategy and Pitt identified surface waterflooding as a significant factor in the events of 2007.

Partly this is because there is more surface runoff as oururban areas have become more intensively developed,and partly the growing realisation that protection fromriver and coastal flooding, where most Government fundinghas been targeted, is only half the issue.

The Act seeks to reduce surface water runoff in severalways. It removes the right of new development to connectto existing surface water drainage systems and thus over-loading them with extra water they were not designed toaccept. It also proposes measures to increase the use ofSUDS drainage systems which could, in some cases, forma viable alternative to surface water sewers. Increasingthe use of SUDS has been seen as a problem in Englandparticularly for several years. The Act seeks to increasetheir usage by a series of measures:

• SUDS to be used for all new development unless theycan be shown to be unworkable

• National design guidance to be produced

• A SUDS approval body (which could be an existing body,probably local authorities) to be established

• SUDS to be adopted by local authorities, if approved

These measures may finally overcome the perceived barriers to increased use of SUDS and their implementa-tion provides another important role for local authorities.If successful in making SUDS the standard way to drainnew development, they could significantly reduce runoffand, one hopes, provide some improvement to waterquality by removing pollutants in urban runoff. However,like much of the Act, these measures will require second-ary legislation and the production of guidance before theyare brought into force. This is particularly uncertain with anew Government with many other priorities and there areconsiderable financial implications for local authorities which will have to be addressed before aworkable solution is in place.

So is the Act a great step forward for the environment? If fully implemented it is undoubtedly a step in the rightdirection but there are many other aspects which are notyet fully addressed. The Act is silent on runoff from agri-cultural areas, for instance, and this has also been in-creasing in many areas as a result of drainage,compaction of soil and land use change. This is a big gapin the consideration of “flooding from all sources” recom-mended by Pitt. Given more time perhaps a more thoroughapproach to flood management could have been produced.One hopes that it will not require another flood and another review before further progress is made.

AQUARIUS MARINE GROUP LTDThe Beckery, Glastonbury,Somerset, BA6 9NT, UKTel/Fax: 01458 834 734email: [email protected]

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The AQUAERATION System achieves asmaller carbon footprint than our competitorsand compliance with the Water FrameworkDirective.

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Introduction

The loss of essential services, such as power, water,transport and telecommunications, during the flood eventsof Summer 2007 has highlighted that disruption to servicesof this critical infrastructure can have direct effects onboth society and the economy. Other events such as thedisruption caused by large snowfall and freezing temper-atures between December 2009 and January 2010, addweight to the need for further research into methods andtechnologies to improve the resilience of our nation’s critical legacy infrastructure.

The experience of these large-scale extreme weather events,and with growing acceptance of predicted climate changeeffects, have raised the profile of the need for greater co-ordination of effort. It has also raised the need for pri-oritised investment to bring about improved resilience.Given the current economic climate, a more joined-up approach will certainly be required.

The challenge

The UK has a large stock of legacy infrastructure, muchof which dates back to Victorian times when engineeringdesigns were good, but which has since fallen into disrepairthrough lack of maintenance or now requires improvementto cope with increased incidents of extreme weather.

Devolution and privatisation of the utilities sector in thesecond half of the 20th Century introduced new challengeswith a significantly increased number of stakeholders andgeographical/legislative boundaries, which then requiresincreased knowledge sharing and co-ordination.

Co-ordinating the prioritisation of investment is made difficult by each infrastructure sector having differentfunding sources and regulatory regimes.

Strategic level resilience

Increasing awareness of interdependencies betweeninfrastructure assets and the need for a co-ordinated effortto build levels of resilience led, in 2009, to the formationof the Natural Hazards Team (NHT) within the Cabinet Office, which sits as part of the existing Civil ContingenciesSecretariat.

Given the co-ordination challenges described above, theNHT is well placed to affect change right across the UK,since the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) provides a commonframework for all stakeholders and devolved powers.

The NHT has recently published their Strategic Frameworkand Policy Statement (Cabinet Office, 2009) which givesdetails of the process, timetable and expectations for theirCritical Infrastructure Resilience Programme (CIRP).During 2009 the government departments responsible foreach of the nine sectors of national infrastructure (com-munications, emergency services, energy, finance, food,government, health, transport and water) assessed thecurrent vulnerability of their sector from flooding. A summary of the findings, produced as Sector ResiliencePlans (Cabinet Office, 2010a), was published in March2010, two years after being recommended in the Pitt Review– Learning Lessons from the 2007 floods (Cabinet Office,2008). The Cabinet Office have also published InterimGuidance for the Economic Regulated Sectors (CabinetOffice 2010b), identifying considerations for industry onhow they may be able to support resilience building.

There are also a number of other cross-government ini-tiatives which relate to the resilience agenda, none moreso than the Climate Change Adaptation programme. Thisprogramme is bringing about a step-change in adaptation,and so resilience, to climate change through the requirementfor formal reporting under the Climate Change Act 2008.This is going to require a significant cultural change andre-allocation of limited resources for most infrastructureasset owner organisations.

Resilience to flooding

The implementation of flood resistance and resiliencemeasures is most challenging when applied retrospectivelyto existing stocks of legacy infrastructure in the UK. Theexisting regulatory context is highly complex and is furthercomplicated by different sectors having differing planningand investment periods. A recent CIRIA publication, Floodresilience and resistance for critical infrastructure (McBainet al, 2010), presents an evidence base of the work whichhas been undertaken to date to improve the flood resilienceof the UK’s critical infrastructure asset stock. CIRIA C688

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states that the most effective way to build in resilience isfor improvement measures to be included as an integralpart of individual organisations’ business continuity man-agement processes, whole life asset management plansand climate change adaptation strategies.

CIRIA C688 overview

The project was established by CIRIA, building upon previ-ous CIRIA-managed collaborative research on property-level flood resilience (DCLG, 2007) and with the aim ofaddressing some of the critical infrastructure issuesraised by recent severe flooding in the UK. The report pro-vides information and case studies on current flood riskmanagement approaches for critical infrastructure, bothwithin the UK and internationally. The report then pro-vides an overview of current prioritisation of investment,cross-sector collaboration and ongoing work to identifyinterdependencies between critical assets.

CIRIA C688 findings

Collaboration and knowledge-sharing is constrained by anumber of factors including geographical and regulatoryboundaries together with the complex network of inter-connecting critical assets whose owners often operateacross a number of geographical and political boundaries.The experience of development of Strategic Flood RiskAssessments (SFRAs) and Surface Water ManagementPlans (SWMPs) in England and Wales has shown that thelogistics of collaboration between a number of differentorganisations across regional and operational boundariescan be problematic.

In an ideal world, the most sustainable solution for imple-mentation of resilience for linear assets, such as road andrail infrastructure, would be to “build in” resilience to thesystem during routine planned maintenance and renewalprogrammes. However the pressures arising from servicelevel agreements, for example agreements between Net-work Rail who own the rail infrastructure and the trainoperating companies, mean that even routine maintenanceand renewal programmes are heavily scrutinised by regulators, the public and the media alike.

Another approach to achieving increased levels of resiliencefor these legacy infrastructure assets would be multiple-benefit programmes of work whereby flood risk manage-ment capital schemes incorporate protection of criticalinfrastructure at the concept stage and green infrastruc-ture is used to provide flood risk mitigation, increasedpublic amenity and biodiversity, and other benefits suchas thermal regulation in dense urban areas. The CIRIA report recommends that those responsible for settingpolicy, planning and delivering programmes of publicly-funded flood risk management schemes should considerthe protection of critical infrastructure assets more ex-plicitly in their initial prioritisation of capital schemes.This for example might be achieved in England usingamended procedures for prioritising capital schemes.

Working in partnership with critical infrastructure ownersand operators at a strategic level is likely to facilitate betteralignment of overall investment in flood risk managementmeasures. This process would be made easier by guidanceon whole life costs and benefits, including new researchinto customer willingness-to-pay.

This overall spend on flood risk management measuresin the UK could also be supported by the adoption of aNational Infrastructure Bank, as proposed by the Institutionof Civil Engineers in May 2009 (NCE, 2009) and supportedby the Liberal Democrats in the lead up to the generalelections (Liberal Democrats, 2009). The idea of a NationalInfrastructure Bank would be to leverage public fundswith private capital, an approach which will be essential ifthe UK is to progress with the implementation of increasedflood resilience for its critical infrastructure in the currentpublic/private infrastructure and economic backdrop.

References

CABINET OFFICE (2008)

The Pitt Review – Learning Lessons from the 2007 floods

Go to: http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/pittreview/thepittreview.html

CABINET OFFICE (2009)

Strategic Framework and Policy Statement (Natural Hazards Team)

Go to:www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/ukresilience/infrastructureresilience.apsx

CABINET OFFICE (2010a)

Sector Resilience Plans


CABINET OFFICE (2010b)

Interim Guidance for the Economic Regulated Sectors


DCLG (2007)

Improving the flood performance of new buildings: flood resilient con-struction

Department for Communities and Local Government, ISBN 978 1 85946287 4

Go to: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuild-ing/improvingflood

DEFRA (2009)

Hilary Benn calls on engineering sector to lead the design and build of aclimate change resilient Britain

News article published 2 December 2009, Ref. 281/09

Go to: www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/091202b.htm

MCBAIN, W, WILKES, D, & RETTER, M (2010)

Flood resilience and resistance for critical infrastructure

Construction Industry Research and Information Association, March2010

C688, ISBN 978-086017-688-6

Go to: www.ciria.org/service/c688

NCE (2009)

ICE calls for national infrastructure bank

News article published 1 May 2009

Go to: www.nce.co.uk/ice-calls-for-national-infrastructure-bank/5201393.article


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It is one of nature’s little ironies that in a country like theUK, entirely surrounded by water and with apparently copious supplies from the sky, mains water resourcesacross wide swathes of the land are already under seriousstress, with population growth and climate change predictedto make matters far worse over the coming decades.

Yet on the other side of the same coin, we are all too familiar with the many occasions over the years when thisapparent dearth of an essential natural resource periodicallyturns to an over-abundance that results in floods andwide-spread destruction to property.

As recently as the summer of 2007, for example, Junewas one of the wettest months on record, with averagerainfall across England of 140mm, or more than double

the June average. Some areas received a month’s precipi-tation in just 24 hours that, when coupled with the equallywet May and July – the three months combined being the wettest since records began in 1776, led to a series of destructive floods across the country causing damage estimated at £6 Bn. More recently, abnormal rainfallwrought similar havoc across Cumbria in 2009, with thetown of Workington split into two by loss of its river crossings.

For all practical purposes, there is little that can be doneto mitigate the impact of abnormal weather conditions onnatural water-courses, although maybe more will need tobe attempted in the future if climate change serves tomake torrential rainfall across the UK a new norm.Meanwhile, it has long been national planning policy to

Steff Wright is Chairman of the Gusto Group andits subsidiary Freerain Ltd, and has also beenChairman of Lincoln City Football Club for thelast 5-years; an award-winning developer ofsustainable homes, he is a founder member ofthe UK Rainwater Harvesting Association, and ofthe UK Sustainable Development Association.

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ensure that the construction industry does not add to theproblem by increasing the surface-water run-off from asite post-development; where local flood risks are knownto be high, this can translate into no surface water what-soever running freely off the site whenever exceptionalrainfall is experienced.

This is achieved by ensuring that all new developmentsare served by a sustainable urban drainage system(SUDS), which very simply retains surface water – ie therainfall on roofs and other hard surfaces such as roads –on the site either permanently, or until the storm draininfrastructure or natural soak-aways can cope with it.Typical methods of doing this include holding the wateron the surface in a balancing pond or swale, but as thisrequires the dedicated use of expensive land, undergroundattenuation tanks are often preferred if soil characteristicspreclude reliance on soak-aways. The size of the tank iscarefully calculated to take into account extreme rain eventslikely to cause floods, with the water collected being dissipated over a number of days, rather than minutes. It should be emphasised, however, that such measurescannot prevent floods, but do serve to avoid them frombeing worse than they would be naturally.

So having collected all this water, how does that help thewater shortage situation? Along with the vast majority ofall other rainfall, attenuated water largely finds its way indue course via the storm drain infrastructure into naturalwater courses and thence into the sea; that is, of course,unless someone has the foresight to integrate rainwaterharvesting into their attenuation arrangements.

Rainwater harvesting is as old as history, surviving as asource of household water in the UK through to Victoriantimes; only with the provision of seemingly limitless sup-plies of drinking quality water direct to the household tapdid the practice all but die out in Britain until relatively re-

cently. That is, until we discovered the mains supply wasnot in fact limitless!

The stresses on water supplies have been on the Govern-ment’s policy agenda for many years, reflected in variouscampaigns aimed at economising on use; this has the advantage that economising measures can be applied

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can be applied equally to new buildings and to the existingbuilt environment. More recently, the policy has evolved toembrace new building with, for example, the Code forSustainable Homes calling for progressive reductions inwater consumption down from the current national averageof 150-litres per person per day, to no more than 80-litresto meet Levels 5&6 of the Code.

These policy strictures are now being legally enforcedthrough recent updates to Building Regulations which require for the time-being that consumption be no morethan 125-litres per person per day. This needs to bedemonstrated to the satisfaction of Building Inspectorsusing the Government’s water consumption calculatormethodology with buildings not being signed-off for occupation until that has been achieved.

At face value, there appears to be a strong overlap betweenrainwater harvesting and rainwater attenuation, in thatboth involve the collection of surface water – the formerfrom (usually) the roof, the latter from both the roof andother hard-standings; they diverge, however, in that theaim of attenuation is the delayed dissipation of all thewater collected into soak-aways or the storm drain system,whereas harvesting systems seek to retain a sustainedsupply of good quality water for subsequent “non-whole-some” uses such as toilet flushing, clothes washing,car/fleet washing and garden/grounds irrigation. Neitherdoes a rainwater harvesting system substitute for an attenuation system, in that its overflow still needs to be

connected to exactly the same surface water managementarrangements as would exist without it.

Where the two systems do come elegantly together, how-ever, is by their integration into a single system designedto harvest good quality water for non-wholesome re-usepurposes, maintain a fixed body of water to meet fire-fighting requirements (in a commercial building for exam-ple), and reserve empty capacity to meet SUDSattenuation requirements. This can be achieved very simplyby using one compartmentalised tank, containing a suitably-sized section for each of the above requirements, or bysuitably linking two or three separate tanks. Either way,the advantage for the developer is that only a single holesneeds to be dug and both the water-supply and surfacewater management issues (and fire-fighting if relevant) of the project are solved.

Applied consistently to new buildings over the comingdecades, rainwater harvesting can play an extremely usefulrole in helping to avert a crisis in the supply of drinkingwater. In new-build houses, a system will reduce mainswater consumption by up to 50% by substituting rainwaterfor the non-wholesome uses in the home; in commercialbuildings (where systems can also be retrofitted), anystructure that combines a large roof with a high demandfor non-wholesome water can achieve savings well in excess of 80%.

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Rainwater harvesting is now seen as a means of reducingmains water consumption, something that we are now allunder strong official pressure to do. It is also now recog-nised that rainwater harvesting can at the same time contribute to attenuating flood water flow, i.e. holdingsome storm water that comes off the roof and letting itflow at a controlled, slower, rate to the drain or soakaway.

While flood attenuation has previously required stand-aloneholding tanks, planning applications that include rainwaterharvesting as part of the storm attenuation plan are nowviewed favourably. In many cases it is made a requirement,particularly for flood attenuation. What the planners arelooking out for are ways of preventing drains overflowingduring what seem to be our increasingly frequent veryheavy downpours. With the growing prevalence of hard-standings for parking in front of houses, the situation is

made worse with storm run-off racing to the drains ratherthan filtering through permeable surfaces like lawns andgravel drives. In fact, since October 2008, planning per-mission is now required to lay traditional impermeabledriveways that allow uncontrolled runoff of rainwater fromfront gardens onto roads. If a new driveway or parkingarea exceeding 5 square metres in area is constructedusing, for example, permeable concrete block paving,porous asphalt or gravel, or if the water is otherwise ableto soak into the ground, planning permission is not required.The new rules also apply where existing hardstandingsare being replaced and, despite starting off as provisionsfor built-up areas (SUDS stands for Sustainable UrbanDrainage Systems) are being applied in the country too.

When installing a rainwater system, there are two ways ofdealing with overflow from the storage tank: either excess

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water goes to a soakaway or back to the main drain. Forthe homeowner or installer, this choice should normallybe a matter of convenience. The main drain is the easiestsolution as it avoids having to build a soakaway. Howeverconnection to the main drain is not always permissible,making the construction of a soakaway necessary. For theplanner and the water company, a soakaway solution is thebest, as this makes for less rainwater pouring into localdrains. In fact, the new Flood Management Bill removesthe automatic right to connect to main drains, giving localauthorities the power to impose other drainage solutions.

Normally speaking, rainwater for use in the house for WCsand washing machines and for outdoor needs is collectedoff the roof. Filtered and stored underground, the rainwateris clean and fresh enough for these non-potable domesticuses. The rainwater coming off nonporous ground-levelsurfaces risks being polluted by animal droppings, oil orchemical spills, and even after filtering would not normallybe suitable for use in WCs and washing machines. Itcould, however, be used for outdoor purposes.

A normal rainwater harvesting system does, in any case,relieve pressure on main drains because a large volumeof rainwater off the roof is being diverted into the storagetank and thence into the home for use. If, however, thattank is full or nearly full, the excess rainwater in a heavydownpour will overflow.

One solution is to install a larger capacity storage tankthan would be required for recycling the rain. In additionto the overflow siphon at the top of the tank, a secondoverflow is set at a much lower level. Rainwater is storedbelow this in the normal way, but in a heavy downfall theexcess rain filling the top half of the tank exits via a devicethat slows the flow rate to the main drain. This can be afloating drain choke or a metal attenuating flange fitted inthe lower overflow hole in the side of the tank. This flangehas different-sized holes in it and can be set to the flow-rate required, for example, from 1 to 6.5 litres per second.

Alternatively, a length of perforated drain can be put between the tank exit and the main drain to dissipate theexcess rainwater. Both 1200mm diameter concrete pipesand plastic crates are often used to make big attenuationcells.

Calculating the amount of water in a one in a 10-year orone in a 100-year storm is a task for a specialist consultantengineer, but for some developments the amount of

water to hold, temporarily, can be hundreds of thousandsof litres. In the case of a single home, the soakaway forattenuation is often double the capacity of the rainwatertank. In extreme cases, planners may require the total attenuation volume to be big enough to hold one half ofthe annual rainfall coming off the roof. It must also reachbelow any impervious layers so that the water flows awayto ground within a day. It should also be at least 2 metresaway from the storage tank.

Clearly it makes sense to use the rainwater wheneverpossible, so various combinations of storage tanks withattenuation products can be installed depending on thesite.

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Here in the UK momentum is building on what is one ofthe country’s biggest commercial developments, the 2012Olympics site. In the nearby Thames Gateway area, planningis also underway for 100,000 new homes – many of whichcould be at risk from flooding if not protected by theThames Barrier, as much of this activity will be sited in thenatural flood plain of the River Thames. However, the issueof flood risk is already high on the agenda for planners andproperty developers who are seeking specialist advice inorder to ensure effective flood risk management in the area.

But not all areas or events are afforded such foresight interms of flood planning. Take for example the Europeanwindstorms which brought heavy rain and gale force windsto Great Britain in 2009. One of the worst affected areaswas Cumbria, which experienced extensive damage andflooding. A year on, Cumbria has still not fully recoveredfrom this natural disaster, which has needed more than£10 million in financial support from the Government.2

It is likely that climate change and its continuing impacton weather patterns will increase the risk of these extremeweather events yet further and see the instances of pluvialflooding, fluvial flooding, groundwater flooding and floodingfrom sewers increase.

However, steps are already being taken at a national levelto address the need for better, more comprehensive management of flood risk for people, homes and businesses.The Flood and Water Management Act 20103 receivedroyal assent in April 2010 and will be a key driver in makingthis happen, primarily via work with both the EnvironmentAgency and water companies themselves.

Landmark Environment recognises that, as Governmentcommitment to this issue increases, the process of FloodRisk Assessment (FRA) will come under considerablescrutiny for consultants and their developer clients. Forthis reason we have been working to increase the data weare able to provide to customers through our Envirochecksuite of products. The priority has been to create a single,comprehensive source which can help speed-up the assessment process without compromising on accuracy.

The Envirocheck Flood Screening Report is the result ofthis work - bringing together for the first time flooding information from a range of sources, providing a ‘one stopshop’ for consultants, enabling easier collation, interpre-tation and analysis of crucial data. Maps are included at1:10,000 and 1:50,000 scales and include contour detailand spot height information, giving clear and rapid infor-mation on the local topography. In addition to EnvironmentAgency data, this new report also includes informationfrom another four key sources, covering issues such assurface flooding, flood depths, undefended flood risk andsets the standard for flood information in England, Walesand Scotland.

Surface flooding in particular is a critical area of consid-eration in the current climate, with an estimated 66% ofthe 2007 floods caused by flooding from minor rivers,overland flow, rising groundwater levels and inadequatecapacity of drainage systems in urban areas. The Enviro-check Flood Screening Report was the first report to drawinformation such as this together into one accessible source.

Yet, whilst we are working closely with industry to contin-ually drive up standards in flood risk assessment, we alsowant to work with consumers to raise awareness of floodrisk and reduce exposure to the damaging effects offlooding. A crucial step in achieving this is making peoplemore aware of the risks so they can take action to maketheir homes more resilient before the worst case scenario occurs.

Working closely with the National Flood Forum, in 2008Landmark launched the ‘Know Your Flood Risk’ (KYFR)campaign, which has a mission to help raise awareness ofthe issue of flood and encourage practical guidance andsupport to help protect homeowners, businesses andproperty professionals against the risks.

KYFR was launched in the wake of the 2007 floods, whichtook place during the wettest summer on record and affected more than 55,000 properties. These events costthe insurance industry £3 billion and were recorded as“the largest loss of essential services since World War II.”

FLOOD RISK – RECOGNITION AND RESPONSE

More than 5 million people in England and Wales live and workin properties that are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.1

As the threat of flooding continues to rise, there has never beenmore imperative to ensure the UK is well equipped to bothrecognise and respond to flood risk, says David Mole, ManagingDirector at Landmark Environment – the market leadingprovider of site-specific environmental risk information.

David Mole, Managing Director of Landmark Environment

Geographic information is the key to our environmental futureOrdnance Survey is Great Britain’s national mapping agency. It is our job to collect, maintain and distribute the most accurate and up-to-date geographic information of the whole country that government, business and individuals all rely upon.

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Since its launch, the National Flood Forum andLandmark Information Group have recruitedmore than 130 people from both the publicand private sectors to the campaign. We havefound that there are areas of common groundbetween relevant organisations from the pri-vate, public and charity sectors and so byjoining together we believe we are more likelyto succeed in the face of the growing chal-lenge of flood risk. The Environment Agencyestimates that one in six properties is at riskof flooding in England. However, our sourcescalculate that the figure is closer to one infour.

At Landmark Environment we will continue towork with our key data providers such as theEnvironment Agency, the British GeologicalSurvey and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrologyin order to equip consultants and developerswith extensive information on this topic andhelp support sustainable development, evenin flood plain areas. As a company we willalso continue to maximise our work with theNational Flood Forum to ensure we raiseawareness as well as provide advice on howto adapt and protect our homes and places ofwork long into the future.

More information on the Envirocheck FloodScreening Report is available at www.envi-rocheck.co.uk.

To find out more about the Know Your FloodRisk campaign, and to register your support,please visit www.knowyourfloodrisk.co.uk

Order Details

Site DetailsSite at 446200, 240550

Order Number:Customer Ref:National Grid Reference:Slice:Site Area (Ha):Search Buffer (m):

27318018_1_1ECF Sample Site446210, 240550A0.131000

Tel:Fax:Web:

0844 844 99520844 844 9951www.envirocheck.co.uk

Page 3 of 5A Landmark Information Group Service v40.0 01-Jun-2009

RMS 100 year Return Flood Map - Slice A

RMS 100 year Return Flood Map (1:10,000)

Order Details



27318018_1_1ECF Sample Site446210, 240550A0.131000

Tel:Fax:Web:



BGS Flood Data Map - Slice A

BGS Flood Data (1:50,000)

Order Details



27318018_1_1ECF Sample Site446210, 240550A0.131000

Tel:Fax:Web:



EA Flood Data Map - Slice A

EA Flood Data Map (1:10,000)

Below: Three sample screen shots taken fromthe Envirocheck flood screening reports

1 www.environment-agency.gov.uk/flood 2 www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/15161693 www.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/policy/fwmb/

index.htm


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Technical approaches to contaminated land andgroundwater remediation in the UK have evolvedsignificantly over the past fifteen years. We havemoved on from a traditional approach to contam-inated land remediation (`dig and dump’) andtreatment of contaminated groundwater (‘pumpand treat’). Both of these techniques still have animportant role to play, but there is now a veryreal acceptance that fresh thinking and a willing-ness to consider a combination of innovativetechnologies can bring both financial and envi-ronmental benefits to the characterisation andremediation of contaminated sites.

Along with advancements in the technologiesavailable to remediation contractors, sustainabilityis increasingly becoming recognised as a factorto be considered when developing strategies todeal with land and groundwater contamination.The Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF-UK)has recently published a Framework for Assessingthe Sustainability of Soil and Groundwater Reme-diation. SuRF describes sustainable remediationas “The practice of demonstrating, in terms ofenvironmental, economic and social indicators,that the benefit of undertaking remediation isgreater than its impact and that the optimum remediation solution is selected through the useof a balanced decision-making process”.

A very competent and dynamic contaminatedland industry has developed in the UK over thepast 15 years. This has been driven to a large extent by the willingness of a number of smallcompanies to invest in the development and

Innovation for SustainableContaminated Land andGround Water Remediation

Below Dual cassette mechanism on one of Ecologia’sdrilling rigs. The system combines a sonic head (right)and rotary head (left) on a single mast, allowing rapidswitching between methods on a relatively compact rig.

Mike Lenn, PhD: Director, Ecologia


commercialisation of innovative technologies or to simplyapply creative thinking to adapt existing technologiesfrom other industries.

Three key approaches that can improve the overall environmental impact of contaminated site managementare:

1. Careful characterisation of the site and delineation ofthe actual extent of land requiring remediation.

2. Selection of an efficient remedial methodology (possiblyinvolving a combination of different approaches).

3. Optimisation of the selected technologies on a site-specific basis.

I will discuss below just three examples of the many innovative technologies that reflect these approaches andwhich provide for greater efficiency in contaminated landand groundwater clean-up.

Sonic Drilling Technology

Although not a “new” technique, the last decade has seenthe introduction of the use of sonic drilling equipment inthe UK. The majority of “sonic” rigs work by vibrating thedrill string at high frequency (0-250Hz), causing uncon-solidated material to fluidise and displace around thestring making the technique ideal for drilling overburden.Larger sonic rigs often combine sonic and rotary methods(roto-sonic) to allow drilling through consolidated materialsand hard rock, in the latter case the sonication assistingthe mechanical breakage is normally associated with ro-tary drilling, although such technology is generally onlyfound on larger machines. Sonic heads are mounted on avariety of chassis, ranging from agricultural tractor

mounting for the smaller vibration only heads, rightthrough to specialised roto-sonic machines in the order of20 tonnes plus.

For environmental applications, the overwhelming advan-tage of sonic drilling is the removal of flush media fromthe drilling process, eliminating any risk of further mobil-ising contaminants or disrupting an existing plume. Sample quality is excellent and, in many cases, totallyrepresentative of natural ground conditions.

Sonic drilling in overburden is dry drilling and produces80%-100% less spoil than conventional methods; apartfrom the material retrieved as samples, the drilledground is entirely displaced into existing space in the soil,effectively leaving any would-be spoil in the ground. Thisreduces vastly, if not eliminates, the cost and environmentalimplications of off-site spoil disposal. Lightweight sonicrigs require no more fuel to run than conventional rotarymachines and, while the larger units require considerable resources to run, they work at a significantlyfaster rate than conventional rigs with a smaller footprintand, under the right conditions, can offset any disadvantages.

Another innovation that works in tandem with sonicdrilling is the Aqualock, a patented soil sampling method.This method allows for discrete sampling of high qualityundisturbed soil cores at a desired depth. The samplerthat comes in 2-metre lengths is dropped to its requireddepth at the same speed as with the lost cone method.For the penetration the space within the Aqualock sampler is filled with water which keeps the piston downat the bottom end, therefore there is no drilling cone involved. When the required depth has been reached, thewater is allowed to escape towards the drilling rodsabove.

Close-up of Ecologia’s ISRFH electrodearray and soil vapour extraction wells duringremediation of petrol station in Kent.


The sonic vibrations make it possible to achieve an undisturbed core where generally only the outer layer (1to 2 mm) is affected by the vibrations. Samples can betaken from clay as well as from (coarse) gravelly sand.The sampler can be lowered down the previously drilledhole and at the new depth another sample can be taken.Finally, with the aid of the water the sample is pressedout of the sampler into a trough or a plastic liner.

Sonic drilling can provide rapid characterisation of contaminated sites. Drilling and installation of high qualitygroundwater monitoring installations (piezometers) canbe achieved in less than an hour. The ability to retrieveundisturbed soil cores and to define bands of contaminationonly few centimetres thick can enhance understanding ofthe site. An experienced remediation consultant/contractorcan use this data to optimise remedial technology selection.

In-Situ Radio-Frequency Soil heating (ISRFH)

Thermally enhanced remediation technologies can beused to treat a spectrum of contaminants in vadose andsaturated zones. Soil is heated in situ to increase volatilityor reduce viscosity of organic contaminants so they maybe removed via soil vapour extraction (SVE) or High VacuumMulti-phase Extraction.

Volatile and semi-volatile organic contaminants (includingPetroleum range hydrocarbon, BTEX and chlorinated solvents) are more readily mobile at temperatures abovetypical ground temperatures of 5 to 15oC. The physicaland chemical properties of the soils can be modified bycontrolled heating such that they are more amenable forremediation. A 10º C increase in the soil temperature cansignificantly improve desorption of compounds, increasevolatility and enhance microbial degradation. To date, fourmain methodologies have been used and investigated forsoil heating: hot air injection; steam injection; heatinglances; resistive and dielectric heating. The dielectricheating method has proven to be the most effective tech-nique in a wide range of soils (dry, humid, tight soils).

ISRFH is an innovative approach and is the most efficientway of producing dielectric heating in soil. ISRFH technologyheats the soil water, which in turn enhances the mobility,volatility and therefore removal of VOCs and sVOCs fromsoil: An RF generator produces high frequency electro-magnetic current which, when applied to electrodes orantennae installed in the ground, generates heat, therebyincreasing the soil temperature. The heat is generatedwhen an oscillating electromagnetic field interacts withpolar molecules in the subsurface, causing them to rotateand generate heat within the soil. Water is the primarymolecule involved in the generation of heat but other molecules, including the contaminants themselves, areaffected by the introduction of RF energy into the sub-surface. The heating effect is similar to that within a microwave oven; however, a much lower frequency of between 5 to 45MHz is commonly used for heating soil.This frequency allows the radio waves to penetrate severalmetres into the soils.

The main advantage of the RF treatment technology isthat it is considerably less dependent than other methodson either the soil type or the contaminant type.

Ecologia undertook a detailed study of ISRFH combinedwith soil vapour extraction during the remediation of apetrol station in Kent. We were able to demonstrate thatnot only was the final remedial outcome better thanwould typically be achieved through soil vapour extractionalone, but the overall energy usage was lower than thatcalculated for SVE alone. Reduced energy consumption,coupled with reduced remedial time scale (and hence reduced travel for site attendance) and reduced residualcontaminant concentrations clearly demonstrate that thisis a novel approach with good `sustainability’ credentials.It may seem counter-intuitive to some that methodswhich require the input of a significant amount of energyinto the ground can actually require less energy than conventional systems; however Ecologia’s data appear tosupport previous academic findings in this respect (Ref 1).

A good example of a combined-technology approachto on-site remediation. ISRFH system is treating ahotspot of solvent contamination (bottom right) and is linked to a high capacity multi-phase extraction system, which is also treating a larger area. Behind this is an aerated biopile treating contaminated soil.


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Advanced System Monitoring and Automation

No matter how well characterised a site is, or how well-selected the remedial technologies are for a site, there isalways scope to refine the process on a site specific basisto improve efficiency. Creative thinking and innovation inthe use of automation and remote operation can reducethe overall environmental impact of a remediation programme significantly.

The use of in situ soil heating on a contaminated site relies heavily upon the use of automated and electronicmonitoring and control of systems and would not be possible to operate efficiently on a manual basis due tothe complexity of the process. Part of the process of ensuring that the soil has been effectively remediated isto closely monitor the amount and type of contaminationthat is removed from the soil. The process equipmentused to undertake the project described above includedan automated hydrocarbon vapour analyser fitted with adatalogger. The use of a process logic controller within

the sampling set-up allowed a single analyser to be usedon multiple sampling locations on a predetermined timingarrangement. The extracted samples were passedthrough a drying stage and then through a photo-ionisationdetector linked to a datalogger. The use of the automatedsystem played a vital role in optimising the process andallowing us to target particular zones of contaminationmore aggressively where required.

Another example is in the aeration of biopiles for ex-situtreatment of contaminated soils. This can be accomplishedthrough mechanical turning of the soil or by drawing airthrough the soil using a network of pipes connected to avacuum blower. Both methods require a substantial inputof energy; however the application of relatively simpleprocess and control systems can greatly reduce theamount of energy required to aerate the soil. A recentproject undertaken by Ecologia used an automated gasanalyser to measure the CO2 and O2 concentrationswithin a 3,500 m3 biopile. A multi-gas analyser was usedto sample and analyse the gases within the biopile andthe output was linked to the process logic controller (PLC)of the remediation system. The PLC was then able toswitch the aeration blowers on and off line as required bythe gas concentrations within the biopile. This relativelysimple use of automated process control made a sub-stantial energy saving of 80% and therefore a significantcost saving for the project and the technique as a whole.In addition to the energy savings, the automated analysisof the gases provided data which was logged and enabledthe rate of CO2 production and O2 utilisation to be studied,a key factor in monitoring the overall ‘health’ of a biore-mediation process as well as an important source of datato demonstrate that the project was successful.

Summary

There is a growing acceptance that it is not just the end-point (achieving a `clean’ site) that matters, but how thatend-point is achieved in the context of the wider environ-ment. Remediation consultants and contractors now havea range of technical options available to them; theyshould also be prepared to consider sustainability as akey factor in the development of site characterisation andremedial strategies.

ISRFH has won the 2009 Brownfield Briefing Award forthe ‘most innovative remediation technology’.

The application of ISRFH at a former service station nearManston, Kent in 2008 has also been selected by CL:AIREas a technology development project (TDP 28), to be pub-lished in the near future.

Reference 1: Hiester, Schrenk, & Weiss. EnvironmentalBalancing of "Cold" SVE and Thermally Enhanced SoilVapour Extraction - Practical Support for Decision Mak-ers. In: Annokkée G.J., Arendt F. & O. Uhlmann (eds.): 8.International FZK/TNO Conference on Contaminated Soil(ConSoil 2003-Proceedings)


Two decades ago conferences were being held on thetheme ‘how clean is clean enough’ – the beginnings of therealisation that if risk based land management was to become more than theory, we had to accept that contami-nants could be left in the ground while still demonstrablyensuring safety. This allowed pathway interruption inno-vations such as permeable reactive barriers or non-inter-ventionist techniques such as monitored naturalattenuation to gain regulatory acceptance.

The advent of the Britain’s three contaminated landregimes at the start of the millennium enshrined theprinciple and policy of risk based land management inlaw. Land that was causing significant harm, or there wasa significant possibility that it could do so, would be determined as contaminated land and remediation wouldbe required to render the land fit for the purpose forwhich it had planning permission. The lesson from theUnited States experience of implementing its equivalentto Part 2A was that generic approaches could help speedup decision making and thereby help secure more timelyremediation. So the UK funded a body of technical guidanceto support the implementation of Part 2A, including thedevelopment of soil guideline values (SGVs). SGVs com-prised contaminant concentrations in soil that representedexposure posing tolerable or minimal risk: however muchthe exposure from SGV levels of contamination it was certainly not ‘too much’.

In parallel, this densely populated island continued itspost second world war programme of replacing and expanding its housing stock and land contamination was

deemed to be a ‘material consideration’ under the planningregime. Adages such as ‘an Englishman’s home is hiscastle’ and ‘safe as houses’ were reflected in the wordingof guidance to planners to ensure land was safe, fit forpurpose and as a minimum could not possibly be deemedto be statutory contaminated land. In the same way thatexceeding the speed limit constitutes a statutory offencebut grossly exceeding it results in harsher punishmentand conviction of more serious offences so it was slowlyrealised that the requirements of the planning and Part2A regimes were different. While developers had to provetheir new builds were below a threshold of safety, localauthorities had to prove land was above a threshold of un-acceptability before designating land contaminated. I havelikened planning to limbo dancing and Part 2A to the highjump.

Over recent months many voices have been critical ofDEFRA’s decision not to publish ‘red line’ values (RLVs) –generic assessment criteria which if exceeded would suggest that land met the condition for determination ascontaminated. Why would they do this in the face of longand loud clamour for such values? Short of setting a‘speed limit’ by legal definition the scientific defencibilityof any meaningful RLV is limited. Preliminary scopingstudies show that such RLVs would have to be very highfor their exceedance always to indicate a significant possibility of significant harm. Determinations made whereRLVs were not exceeded would be easily open to challenge.To date none of the court cases arising from Part 2A havequestioned the determination of contaminated land –

Image copyright C P NATHANAIL, reproduced with permission.

Unacceptable intake –

when is a lot,

‘too much’?Professor Paul Nathanail CGeol EuroGeol SiLC,

Director, University of Nottingham Masters inContaminated Land Management & ManagingDirector, Land Quality Management Ltd.

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merely the allocation of responsibility for paying for theremediation.

So how are the regulators to make decisions now the ‘exceeding the SGVs is not necessarily too much’ cat hasbeen let out of the bag?

Wind back a few years and the clamour then was for SGVsfor more substances. A budget constricted and politicallyrigorous procedure meant progress was slow. The solutionwas for a sector-led initiative to develop generic assess-ment criteria (GAC) equivalent to SGVs for use until SGVsbecame available. The outcomes of the 2006 LQM/CIEHinitiative quickly became accepted by most regulators andpractitioners as values of choice at the generic quantitativerisk assessment tier. Changes in technical guidance andmodifications to the CLEA model meant a repeat initiativewas needed. Last year’s two day workshop again organisedby LQM in association with the CIEH and held at the University of Nottingham’s Ebdon Laboratory resulted inGAC for over 80 substances. A subsequent initiative fromEIC members added a further 35 substances for whichGAC are now available – though covering fewer land usescenarios and supported by sparser documentation.While this helped the struggling brownfield regenerationsector it did little to tackle the Part 2A question of when is

‘a lot’ of intake ‘too much’, or in the words of Part 2A itself‘unacceptable’.

The collaborative workshop clearly worked as a means ofmobilising both labour and buy-in. So LQM and CIEH havejoined forces again to lead an initiative to develop sub-stance specific insights into when a given estimated in-take is unacceptable. Such insight will draw on the entirecloud of evidence of each substance’s dose-response relationship. This will allow estimated exposures to becompared with the entirety of our knowledge about con-taminant toxicity rather than just a single hybrid science-policy laden value such as an SGV, or underlying healthcriteria value.

A word of warning however that the above initiative isaimed at risk assessments being carried out underregimes such as Part 2A which target intervention only atunacceptable levels of risk rather than regimes such asplanning which seek to ensure safety.

For further details of the Unacceptable Intake workshopsee www.lqm.co.uk. We hope to bring news of its outcomes in a later issue.


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The recent St Leonard’s Court contaminated land rulingis a wake up call for developers and property owners,write Keith Davidson and Lottie Dodd from Pannone’sEnvironment Team.

In February this year the High Court upheld the Secretaryof State’s decision in the high profile St Leonard’s con-taminated land ruling. The case confirmed that RedlandsMinerals and Crest Nicholson must pay for a multi-millionpound clean up of groundwater pollution at a residentialdevelopment in Sandridge, Hertfordshire.

Fifteen years ago the Parliamentary debates on the Envi-ronment Bill warned the property industry that expensiveretrospective liabilities could attach to brownfield land.The long running saga at St Leonards Court highlights theperils of dealing with contaminated sites. The case can besummarised with five key messages.

KEY MESSAGES

Groundwater remediation can be very expensive - theclean up bill is likely to be more than £15m.

The “suitable for use” test applies to groundwater – inthis case, a sensitive aquifer will need to be returned toa condition where it is safe to drink water.

A developer can become a “causer” of historic contam-ination by disturbing the ground. This liability remainswith the developer forever, unless successfully trans-ferred.

Sale contracts often include environmental clauseslike the ‘Sold with Information Exclusion Test’ thatsimply don’t work.

Check for contaminated land issues in all propertytransactions and get appropriate protection from environmental specialists.

THE FACTS

Between 1955 and 1980 the St Leonard’s site was a chemical factory producing bromate and bromide. RedlandMinerals acquired the interests of the companies that hadrun the chemical works, so inherited the polluter liability.

In 1983, Redland sold the site to Crest Nicholson whichdeveloped it and built 66 houses on the land.

At the time of the sale, Crest knew about bromide contam-ination in the soil, but nothing about the bromate ground-water pollution. Crest cleaned up the site in co-operationwith the local planning authority to the then requiredstandards and sold the completed development in 1987.

In June 2002, St Albans City and District Council identifiedthe site as “contaminated land” under Part 2A of the Envi-ronmental Protection Act 1990 (Part 2A), on the basis thatbromate and bromide was seeping from the land and contaminating a chalk aquifer.

The groundwater contamination forced the closure of several abstraction wells and threatened the water supplyof hundreds of thousands of people within five kilometresfrom the site.

The Environment Agency became the enforcing authorityand the area was designated as a special site.

After several rounds of consultation, the agency served aremediation notice on both Crest and Redland in November2002 who immediately appealed to the Secretary of State,each blaming the other for the contamination.

APPEAL AGAINST REMEDIATION NOTICE

There was no technical dispute that bromide and bromatecontaminated the chalk aquifer.

Crest argued that they

- had no knowledge of the bromate prior to and during itsoccupation of the site;

- did not cause or knowingly permit bromate or bromideat the site; and

- had undertaken the appropriate remediation works atthe time in accordance with the standards applicable atthat time.

Redland argued that the site had been “sold with infor-mation” to Crest and therefore Redland should legally beexcluded from any liability.

A planning inspector held an inquiry and written repre-sentations were provided by the appellants, the EnvironmentAgency, Thames Water Utilities Limited and Three ValleysWater plc. His report in November 2007 recommendedthat the Secretary of State should dismiss the appeals.

DECISION

The Secretary of State took two years to make his decision,having considered the planning inspector’s report. He dis-missed the appeals and modified the remediation notice.

The Secretary of State’s decision letter dated 22 July 2009provides a useful summary of the Part 2A rules.

The “suitable for use” test in Part 2A applies togroundwater as well as land. The objective of the remediation should be to allow the aquifer to be usedonce more for potable supply of safe drinking water.

ST LEONARD’S COURT - WAKE UP CALL FORDEVELOPERS AND PROPERTY OWNERS

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Interim remediation can be identified as an urgent action until a longer term strategy is identified. Part 2Aprovides for phased remediation and later remediationnotices can specify the actions.

Both Redland and Crest had “caused” the bromide andbromate contamination and were Class A persons. Therewas no need to consider the “knowing permitter” test.

There is no need for a “causer” to have introduced thecontamination. Crest had “caused” the contaminationas a result of its action and inaction in the way that itdealt with the redevelopment of the site.

The conditions in the Sold with Information test hadnot been satisfied to exclude Redland from its Class Aliability. Redland had not provided information on thebromate contamination. Crest could not reasonablyhave been aware of the extent of the bromide contami-nation from the information that Redland provided.

The Secretary of State decided that on bromate linkageCrest should be apportioned 15% and Redland 85% of theliability. A relevant factor was the period of time for whichthe two parties were in control.

On bromide linkage Crest should be apportioned 55% andRedland 45% of the liability. The starting point was thebromate liability (15:85) and then the liability for Redlandwas reduced due to the partial application of the “sold withinformation” exclusion due to that fact that Crest was madeaware of some of the contamination at the time of the sale.

Care should be taken when appealing a remediation notice.The Secretary of State concluded that Crest had causedbromate contamination as well as bromide contaminationand amended the Remediation Notice accordingly.

APPEAL

On 3 February 2010, the High Court refused Crest’s appli-cation for permission to bring judicial review proceedingsseeking to quash the Secretary of State’s decision. Thebasis of the application was that there had been an err inthe law and an assumption made that Crest’s actions duringits ownership of the land were connected to the pollutionas identified when the remediation notice was served.

The High Court confirmed the “causer” test. By com-mencing demolition works on the Site, Crest caused thecontaminants to enter into the underlying soil and remainopen to rain exposure.

Although it is possible for Crest to appeal this decision inthe Court of Appeal, it has been reported that they havedecided not to appeal the ruling.

EXPENSIVE REMEDIATION

Crest and Redland have been apportioned with a highvalue liability for activities that took place 17 years agoand which, at the time, were not necessarily in breach ofthe guidance and regulations.

The groundwater contamination meant that the watercompanies were required to commence remediation

works and to treat the public water drinking supply. Theworks to date have amounted to a cost of £13m.

As a result of this decision, it seems likely that the watercompanies will seek to recoup from Redland and Crestthe remediation expenditure incurred to date.

INCREASED RISKS FOR DEVELOPERS

Previous case law in Circular Facilities v Sevenoaks high-lighted that a developer can become a Class A “knowingpermitter” of existing contamination.

St Leonard’s for the first time reveals that a developer canalso become a Class A “causer”. Crest had demolished thehardstanding concrete, leaving the contaminated soil exposed to rainfall leaching for more than two years beforethe houses were constructed. This “caused” contaminantsto be flushed deeper and faster into the ground.

WARNING FOR PROPERTY OWNERS LOOKING TO SELL CONTAMINATED SITES

It is common practice in commercial property transactionsto add Sold with Information wording in the sale contractto seek to transfer the seller’s Class A liability to the buyer.

The statutory guidance at D.57 to D.61 of Defra Circular01/2006 sets out various conditions for the Exclusion Testto be successfully applied:

Sold with Information only applies when the regulatordecides to take Part 2A action. Both the seller and buyermust be Class A persons at the time of applying theTest. If a buyer quickly sells or leases the contaminatedsite, it may not become a Class A knowing permitter.

Before the sale, the buyer must have had information thatwould reasonably allow it to be aware of the presenceof the “pollutant identified in the significant pollutantlinkage, and the broad measure of that presence”.

In St Leonard’s, the Secretary of State was not satisfiedthat sufficient information had been provided by Redlandto Crest.

LOOKING FORWARD

This case serves as a reminder to sellers that the disposalof contaminated land does not dissolve the potential forfuture liabilities and costs. In particular, great careshould be taken when using the Sold with Informationtest. Sellers and their legal advisers need to make a fulldisclosure of specific contamination and spell this out inthe sale contract.

Developers need to ensure that their actions and inactionsdo not create a new liability, simply by removing hard-standing or disturbing the soil. Contractor pollution liabilitycover should always be considered.

Keith Davidson specialises in contaminated land transac-tions and has acted in several Part 2A proceedings forboth local authorities and land owners.

CASE 1: United Utilities Water fined over river pollution

United Utilities Water PLC have been fined £12,000 atWigan Magistrates Court for allowing untreated sewageto enter the River Douglas, Wigan. The company was alsoordered to pay the Environment Agency’s costs of£1,944.36. Untied Utilities Water PLC pleaded guilty tothree offences: causing sewage effluent to be dischargedinto the River Douglas, failing to notify the EnvironmentAgency that there was potential to operate the emergencyoverflow system and failing to maintain the duty pumpand the stand-by pump at Chorley Road Pumping Station,Standish, Wigan.

CASE 2: Businessman fined for illegal burning of waste

Sand and gravel merchant Joseph McLaughlin has beenordered to pay £4,398 in fines and costs for illegally burningwaste plastic and wood at his aggregate depot near Tavis-tock. An Agency officer visited McLaughlin’s businesspremises at Windrush, Hayedown on August 17, 2009 toinvestigate a report of a bonfire. Driving onto the site sheimmediately saw a large fire. The blaze contained mainlymanufactured timber including plastic covered worktopsand cupboard doors.

CASE 3: Composting site fined £20,000

A Preston based company has been fined £20,000 at LeylandMagistrates court for failing to comply with an enforcementnotice issued by the Environment Agency. The companywas also ordered to pay costs of £2,843. TEG Group Plcpleaded guilty to the offence, which required the amountof waste on the site to be reduced to the volumes laiddown in their environmental permit. The company ran thesite to accept, store and treat waste for composting. TheEnvironment Agency had granted the site a licence to operate, which outlined conditions to ensure their activitiesdid not pose a risk of harm to the environment or humanhealth. The conditions included limits on the amount ofwaste which could be stored on site at any one time beforetreatment (200 tonnes), and the amount of waste beingtreated (128 tonnes). During inspections by the EnvironmentAgency in 2007, officers found more than three times thepermitted levels of waste being treated on site, breachingtheir permit conditions.

CASE 4: Rogue trader fined

Lee Paul Brown, of Ronkswood, pleaded guilty to onecharge relating to illegally transporting scrap. The items,which included a pair of gates, a filing cabinet, a washingmachine and an electric cooker, were found in the back ofhis van by Police. The 29-year-old was fined £200 and or-dered to pay a £15 victim surcharge. Mr Brown's finecould have been easily avoided if he had registered as awaste carrier with the Environment Agency at a cost of£152 for three years.

CASE 5: Fly-tipping offences costly for offenders

Jeffrey Townsend-Sawyer, of Station Road South, WalpoleSt Andrews, Wisbech pleaded guilty to fly-tipping waste ina lay-by at Old South Bank, Spalding. The waste consistedof corrugated sheeting, analysis of which showed it con-tained asbestos. He was ordered to pay a contribution of£1,500 towards costs and his prison sentence was sus-pended for a year. Lisa Bryan, of Station Road, Wisbech StMary, pleaded guilty to being the owner of a vehicle usedto illegally deposit soil. She was also ordered to pay fullEnvironment Agency costs of £1,686. Bryan said when in-terviewed that she had been paying a local worker to dis-pose of the waste using her vehicle, at an authorised sitebelieved to be near Wisbech.

CASE 6: Warning over illegal crayfish trapping

The Environment Agency, Cumbria Constabulary, the CPSand Natural England are warning that people risk prose-cution if they fish for crayfish without a licence. The strictlaws are in place to protect native white clawed crayfishpopulations, which are under threat from alien Americansignal crayfish. Recently, Christopher Hemsley, 41, fromBramhope, Leeds appeared before Kendal magistratesfor one offence under Sec 9 Wildlife Act and one offenceof unlicensed fishing. He pleaded guilty to both offencesand was fined 3500 GBP for the Wildlife Act offence and£400 for unlicensed fishing. He was also ordered to pay£85 in costs and given a victim surcharge of £15. MattBrazier, Fisheries Team Leader at the EnvironmentAgency said, “We need to protect our native crayfish populations, and managing trapping is a vital way toachieve this.”

Environment Agencyprosecutions



The site manager faced with an urgent knotweed problemwill find a bewildering array of treatments and servicesoffered by companies in ‘the knotweed business’. Acronymspromising speedy treatment abound. This article providesa guide to the herbicide approaches available and setsout some of the questions to ask when choosing a treat-ment or service.

Herbicide treatments for Japanese Knotweed can begrouped into those treating the knotweed in-situ andthose removing the infested soil for treatment elsewhereon the site. Where there is no particular urgency, in-situtreatment will be the most economical and least disturbingoption but for development projects, the duration andcertainty of eradication are often critical.

1. Will I be able to start building work by my deadline?

If the knotweed is growing in a place that must be disturbedfor construction, then you need to allow time for repeatedapplications of herbicide or select a method involving excavation and relocation/disposal. An establishedknotweed stand is very unlikely to be killed completely byone application of any legal herbicide. Even if no shootsdevelop in the following year, rhizome deep in the soil canremain healthy and able to regenerate when disturbed.Consider what effect a delay would have on the rest of theprogramme and whether there are ‘fall-back’ solutionswhen examining the offers from potential contractors.

2. Will the herbicide affect my use of the land or soilafter treatment?

Site managers need to plan all stages of the knotweederadication programme. If knotweed is eradicated in-situthen other desirable plants should be established to replace it. Soil that has been excavated, moved to a treat-ment area and treated with herbicide will need to be re-used on the site or eventually disposed of. The choiceof herbicide can have a significant influence on the futureuse of the soil. Non-residual translocated herbicides suchas glyphosate do not leave residues in the soil likely to affect other plants and so where the location or soil is tobe re-used immediately, non-residual herbicides shouldbe selected. However, several seasons of treatment areneeded to achieve eradication. A residual herbicide suchas picloram will remain effective in the soil for up to 2years. Picloram as a soil application works by forming ashallow layer through which any germinating seedlingswould grow, picking up lethal dose.

The use of herbicides and many other pesticides is increasingly regulated to ensure public safety and theprotection of the environment. For the product user, theproduct label is the primary source of information and

Stephen Blunt BSc MSc CMLI is a horticulturist and Director of GroundCoverDBM – a company specialisingin the eradication of Japanese Knotweed.

Japanese Knotweed regrowth distorted by residueof picloram treatmen

Healthy knotweed rhizome can remain deep beneath astand even after 2 seasons of glyphosate treatment

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directions on the safe and legal use of the pesticide. Theproduct label for Tordon 22K (a widely used product basedon picloram) states that one treatment controls weeds fora whole season, and notes that sensitive plants may beharmed by residues in the soil. The product should not beapplied to soil which may be used as garden topsoil.

Land owners and developers should be careful to insistthat weed control contractors provide full details of theintended chemical products and application rates beforeentering into contracts, so that they can be sure that thesoils are still fit to use once the knotweed has beenshown to be dead.

3. How much herbicide can be used, and how often?

Glyphosate and other herbicides applied to the foliage areonly effective when there is enough leaf area to take upthe chemical, and so there is no benefit in making repeatedapplications to the same stand until the new growth hasfully developed. Residual herbicides remain in the soiland so their use is strictly regulated.

The product label for Tordon22K (picloram) states a maximum total dose of 11.2l product /ha/yr, and a recom-mended application rate for Japanese Knotweed of 5.6l /ha so there should be no more than 2 applications to anyarea of land. Excavating the infested soil material and

building a bund in thin layers, applying Picloram to eachlayer in turn, would exceed the dose permitted by thelabel. It would also create a significant risk of leaching ofthe chemical in run-off or drainage water, which in turncould contaminate adjacent land or watercourses.

4. What limitations does the treatment place on my construction work?

Employers are required to conduct an assessment of anysubstances that their staff are working with or in contactwith (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regula-tions). If any residual herbicide is to be applied, either toknotweed in-situ or to excavated infested soils, thelandowner and other contractors need details of productsand rates so that they can fulfil their duties to their staffand subcontractors who may be required to excavate orhandle that soil in the course of construction. The presenceof chemical residues should also be noted on the con-signment note if soils are subsequently sent to landfill orfor use on another site.

By asking these questions and fully understanding theimplications of treatment options proposed by contractors,a land manager or developer can make an informedchoice, meet his obligations and stay within the law.

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Putting people, animalsand your environment first


On 6th April 2010, the Government approved an order toamend Schedule 9 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981.Schedule 9 lists the species for which it is an offence tointroduce into the wild. This offence is described in Section14. The list is a curious mix of exotic and native animals;Mongolian gerbils rubbing shoulders with red-billedchough. Why the native animals? The animals listed aresubject to species recovery plans and unregulated releasesare regarded as a threat to the health and genetic integrityof the population. Most conservationists agree that it isbetter to nurture a native population rather than exposecaptive-bred animals to the challenges of surviving in thewild. Captive breeding does have a valuable role in somecases. This Act provides a means to regulate the process.

The list also includes 36 plants and 2 species of algae.This is a considerable increase from the original list, thatonly included Japanese Knotweed and Giant Hogweedwithin the vascular plant section. Some of the listedplants will inevitably cause some consternation amongstgardeners. Favourites such as Yellow Azalea, Rhododendronand Cotoneaster are listed. However, Section 14 of the Actstates that it is an offence to ‘plant or otherwise cause togrow’ Schedule 9 species ‘in the wild’. It’s not a ban ongrowing these species, simply an attempt to keep themwithin gardens and amenity areas. Each of the specieslisted is believed to either be invasive in the wild or havethe potential to be so. The Government response to theconsultation can be viewed athttp://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/wildlife/manage-ment/non-native/documents/gov-response-sched-ule9%20.pdf . The document also discusses definitions of‘in the wild’ and provides useful guidance on interpretingthe Act.

The guidance also discusses the potential to include aban on sale for the most injurious invasive plants. This islikely to be a small sub-set of those listed in Schedule 9.Each decision for a ban on sale will need to be supportedby a robust risk assessment. Many retailers are alreadyeliminating these species from their stock, on the

recommendation of organisations such as the OrnamentalAquatic Trade Association and the Horticultural Trade Association. The responsible parts of the plant retail industry are increasingly prepared to reduce the potentialharm their products may cause if they are disposed of inappropriately. They are also co-operating with the Government campaign ‘be plant wise’https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/nonnativespecies/be-plantwise which seeks to educate the public on how theyshould manage aquatic plants and dispose of them, if required.

Surely, banning the sale of pond plants is a fine exampleof the ‘nanny state’? What right does Government have todictate what you put in your pond? Well, if pond plantsstayed in ponds, this would be a legitimate argument.Sadly, they don’t. Many invasive plants aren’t just invasivein the wild. They tend to take over in ponds and gardenstoo. These are often the plants that well-meaning friendsand neighbours give you. Let’s be honest, we don’t tend togive away our prize water lily. It’s usually the plant thatwe’ve pulled out because we’ve already got plenty of it butcan’t quite bring ourselves to compost. When all of ourfriends and neighbours have been given their plant ‘whiteelephants’, the next destination for surplus weed is oftenditches, ponds, lakes and rivers. Even if plants aren’t in-tentionally dumped into the wild, discharges from pondsinto ditches and watercourses can carry propagules thatmay give rise to invasions. If your pond is on the flood-plain, the sobering potential exists that the animals andplants within it may one day join the nearest watercourse.

One such plant is Floating Pennywort, Hydrocotyle ranun-culoides. This is a recent addition to Schedule9 and islikely to be a leading contender for a ban on sale. Manyretailers are already withdrawing this plant from sale.However, I have just searched an online auction site andhad ten hits for ‘Floating Pennywort’, so there is stillplenty of it out there for sale.

Floating Pennywort can form a dense carpet over thewater. Growth rates of up to 20cm a day have been

Over the garden fenceTrevor Renals, Environment Agency


recorded. The carpets spread out from the margins inwhich it roots, creating dense mats up to 30cm deep. It isalready well established in the wild, particularly in southern England. It is most abundant incanals and slow-flowing nutrient-rich rivers. Where itgrows best, the mats often completely cover the water-course, preventing recreational use such as angling andnavigation. The biomass it generates has been estimatedat 200 tons/hectare which increases flood risk. If theweed is not removed, it can break off during high flows,accumulating against bridges, sluices and other structures.

The dense carpet that Floating Pennywort creates overrivers, canals and lakes may also have implications forpublic and animal health. The dense weed creates the appearance of a solid substrate, which can tempt childrenand grazing animals to walk across it. This may exposethem to the risk of drowning. Let’s be honest, even if kidsrealise it’s just a mat of weed over deep water, the temp-tation to walk across it can get the better of them. Becausethe weed grows out from the margins, the zone in themiddle of the canal or river is usually where the weed isleast thick.

Last year the Environment Agency spent in excess of half

a million pounds managing Floating Pennywort. BritishWaterways also had extensive control programmes, particularly in the Midlands. Most of the money was spentcropping areas dominated by Floating Pennywort to keepwaterways open and navigable. In many of these areas,floating pennywort will regrow and require an annual programme of maintenance. Inevitably, the problem isspreading and the annual costs are therefore likely to increase. This is just the sort of commitment that cash-strapped public bodies could do without. This is just oneplant.

If you review the literature predicting the impact of climatechange on our society, increased flood risk is a commontheme. On the positive side, one of the potential benefitsof predicted climate scenarios is increased opportunityfor watersports. However, Floating Pennywort is likely toprefer the predicted climate scenarios, which may exac-erbate flood risk and scupper increased access to water-sports. It seems that floating pennywort has all the oddsin its favour.

There is some good news. CABI, the same organisationthat performed the research into the biological control for


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Japanese Knotweed has also been researching a potentialnatural solution to Floating Pennywort. Funding has beenprovided by Defra as part of its commitment to the WaterFramework Directive. CABI scientists have been working inclose association with scientists from Argentina, home offloating pennywort. Within its native range, Floating Penny-wort has been observed to be controlled by a species of flyand a weevil. Research will now ascertain whether thesenatural enemies pose a risk to UK native plants and crops.If they pass the rigorous host-specificity testing, they maybe suitable to license for release in the UK. It is very en-couraging that the potential exists for a natural solution toFloating Pennywort. In the meantime, we will need to carryon using mechanical and chemical methods of control.

We do need to learn an important lesson from FloatingPennywort and from a variety of other invasive non-nativeplants and animals that are harming our environment.When we get bored with our pets or our plants, we mustdispose of them carefully. If we don’t, the legacy we leavebehind may have profound and irreversible consequencesfor the environment.

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The Organics recycling sector continues to expand rapidly bothas a result of statutory targets to divert biodegradable wastefrom landfill and Government intervention to support the pro-duction of renewable energy in order to assist in meeting therenewable energy target of 15% by 2020.

Since the early 1990’s there has been a steady rise in the numberof facilities to process organic wastes along with better collectionsystems from both improved facilities at Civic Amenity Sitesand kerbside collections of both green and green and kitchenwastes combined.

An annual market survey of the UK organics recycling industryhas been carried out on behalf of the Waste & Resources ActionProgramme (WRAP) and the Association for Organics Recycling(AfOR) by M•E•L Research. These surveys have been imple-mented by or on behalf of the AfOR over the past decade. Thishas shown input tonnages to composting facilities grow steadilyyear on year to the most recently published figures covering2007/08 of 4.5 million tonnes, (provisional 08/09 are 5 million).

The majority of feedstock currently treated at biowaste facilitiesis green waste from domestic sources with approximately 50%of this material derived from kerbside collections, and the remaining material coming directly from Civic Amenity sites.This material is predominantly treated outdoors on open-airwindrow facilities. The collection and treatment landscape ischanging rapidly with the roll out by many local authorities ofseparate food waste collections. This feedstock was primarilygoing to in-vessel composting (IVC) facilities. However in thelast couple of years or so there has been a gradual move towards using Anaerobic Digestion (AD) facilities, although the vast majority of food waste still goes to IVC.

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The last 12 months has seen a significant push by a number ofgovernment agencies to increase the pace of AD development.The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has re-cently confirmed that the Government’s climate change targetswill not be able to be met without the use of AD. In 2008 theGovernment introduced double ROC’s (Renewable ObligationCertificates) for commercial biogas production. Since this timethere has been the introduction of two additional supportingsubsidies, FIT (Feed-in Tariff) and RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive).The former is the latest financial incentive scheme from DECCwhich encourages the development of renewable energy. Thisis in the form of a fixed payment per kilowatt hour of renewableenergy generated, currently set at a minimum of 5p/KWh of energy exported to the grid.The RHI incentive is a means ofproviding cash back for clean energy generation. This schemewhich is a driver set to assist the UK in meeting its 15% renew-able energy target by 2020 is due to commence in 2011. How-ever the commercial reality is that it is still very difficult tomake AD bankable and much more needs to be done before ADplants are built in significant numbers.

Charlie Trousdell, Chairman AfOR

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The majority of collections and treatment of organic wastearisings to date have been focused on the municipal sector.This however is changing rapidly as the commercial andindustrial sector are impacted by the annual landfill taxescalator. This currently stands at £48/tonne and will in-crease by £8 p.a. until 2013 when it will be £72 per tonne.

With this fiscal driver snapping hard at the heels of wastegenerators (or resource Managers as we should now callthem) the offer of other treatment technologies presentan attractive financial alternative.

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The other significant change has been with regards to theperception of the output from biological treatmentprocesses. In the past this material had a low status andcarried little value. This has changed dramatically overthe last five years. The reasons for this are numerous butinclude the change of status of the output from a waste toa product through the introduction of the Quality Protocol(QP) in 2007 (the QP was an Environment Agency/WRAPinitiative focused on defining the point at which waste maybecome a non-waste in order that it falls outside of regulatory controls).

In addition, the uptake by agriculture which is by far thelargest user of outputs from biological treatment to useoutputs from organics recycling facilities has been as aresult of improved user confidence in the farming sector.The increase in the cost of artificial fertilisers and a betterunderstanding of the true value of this material has alsoassisted its use. In excess of 1million tonnes of this materialwas used by the farming community in 2007/08, predomi-nantly in the production of arable crops.

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Living on a small and crowded island poses a number ofchallenges for waste management operators, not least ofwhich is where to locate all these badly needed facilities.The main regulator for the organics recycling sector is theEnvironment Agency (EA) along with the State VeterinaryService (SVS) for facilities taking in food and they are undercontinued pressure from the general public to ensure thatfacilities do not pose a health risk to those living in closeproximity to them. For this reason there is continuedpressure to persuade as many facilities as possible intoproviding a solution which offers partial or total enclo-

sure. Planning for facilities is always difficult and as theybecome more complex in terms of buildings and infra-structure as is the case with AD it is certainly a challengeand a costly exercise to gain the necessary consents.

AfOR wants clarity from the regulator on what is and isn’tacceptable in terms of the construction of facilities. If weare moving to having organic facilities largely enclosedthen the industry needs a level playing field across the UKand as a society we have to be prepared to pay for havingthe best standards and sites that can operate withoutcausing a nuisance to anyone.

Current gate fees for open-air windrow facilities rangefrom £20-25/tonne of input waste. If this was to cover fullenclosure and emissions capture and treatment, a morerealistic figure would be £40-£55/tonne of waste inputmaterial. However this is not as bad as it looks as thisrange is similar to the current rates charged by those already taking in food wastes.

We need to have the best possible facilities to ensure publicacceptance of a doubling of capacity in sites from currentlysome 5 million tonnes to 10 million tonnes by 2016 and todo this it will cost money.

It is important for both industry and the regulator to setstandards to ensure that organic wastes are converted tosuitable resources both in terms of energy and carbonback to the soil. It is perfectly possible to run plants thatwill convert organic wastes in such a way as not to causea nuisance to neighbours that produce both energy andcompost in a carbon efficient manner. All we need is acommitment from government to set a level playing fieldand to be sensible with the planning system to assist inpermitting facilities rather than the current case whichseems to be to object to facilities as a matter of principle!

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Despite the challenges to the organics industry and whilsta few companies have gone bankrupt and a number arestruggling, the industry is surviving the recession quite well.

It has been driven both by bold entrepreneurs within theindustry who have had the vision and courage to invest inthe future and by the green agenda.

The future is very exciting with the potential for industryto at least double the processing capacity for organicwastes providing the new government helps to facilitatethis growth.


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Technological innovation, landfill directive pressures andthe drive for cost efficiencies have combined to make wasteshredding an important consideration for companies thatbefore didn’t even think it possible…

There was a time when the market for industrial wasteshredding systems was limited to a specific range ofcompanies with largely heavy duty waste disposal requirements. Not any longer.

As waste technology becomes evermore innovative, revolutionary machines have the capability of shredding adiverse range of materials. Clients with confidentialwaste, for example, can now physically shred their harddrives rather than just wiping the information clean.Elsewhere, larger waste companies can now shred his-torically difficult household materials such as mattressesand carpets, with the same equipment to process theirnormal waste streams.

But technological advancement is not the only reason thatshredders are being used in more and more varying scenarios.

An increasing number of companies are faced with theneed to reduce waste storage costs and more importantlyalleviate the pressures of landfill charges. So whilst theidea of shredding old wooden pallets perhaps doesn’tstand out as the most pioneering waste management development, when you consider that just 6 to 9 tonnes of shredded woodchip in a biomass burner generatesenough energy to heat a 3,000 sqm industrial unit for anentire week, the economic and environmental benefitstake on a life of their own.

Wood is a non-hazardous material that should not – andcannot, by law – end up in the general waste stream. Sorather than stockpiling pallets as a waste product, factories– armed with information like this – can begin to see theadvantages of either creating their own ‘renewable’ energysource or supplying it to a third party as a reduced-sizerecyclable.

Even where waste is approved for landfill, the associatedcharges are high. Therefore working towards 100% recy-clability now, rather than waiting to be pushed by Govern-ment directive, is undoubtedly the cheaper option in thelong run.

Of course ‘the long run’ is part of the issue, as it is verytempting to ignore EU landfill diversion initiatives whilewe struggle for economic stability. But whether or notbusinesses feel ready and able to exercise their corporatesocial responsibility and reduce their environmental impact,create unprecedented pressures on the Government andwaste management industry to find alternative solutionsfor utilising waste are not about to disappear.

It is now more than ten years since the EU Landfill Directiveset mandatory targets for the UK to cut landfill volumesor face hefty fines, and while some people face the dead-lines with optimism, there is concern elsewhere that theUK’s overall approach to waste management is trailingbehind continental Europe.

Waste Shredding For Companies That Didn’t Think it PossibleChris Oldfield, Managing Director of RiversideWaste Machinery


I read last year for example that the UK, with a populationof 60.5 million, has only 24 EfW plants compared to envi-ronmentally conscious Denmark, which has 32 plants fora population of five million. A survey by international legalpractice Norton Rose has also revealed that more thantwo thirds (69%) of senior waste sector stakeholders believe the UK will miss the 2013 landfill reduction target.

There is however still chance to catch up. News thatFrance and Germany have already been able to meet theirEU targets sends a clear message that it can be done –providing the UK embraces innovative waste processing technologies in the same way.

And encouragingly, there are signs that this is beginningto happen. For example, the excitement surrounding Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) continues to grow, as evermorerevolutionary ways to process Municipal Solid Waste(MSW) are sought by clients.

The innovative composting process of anaerobic digestion(AD) also presents significant opportunities for businesses,especially as biogas fuels come into sharper focus as apotential contributor to the future energy mix. After placingused waste food products – that have been shredded andscreened at pre-treatment stage – into vats for composting,the resulting rich biomass gas (methane and carbon dioxide) can be harvested for use as fuel.

Clearly, initial capital expenditure on such waste manage-ment solutions is sizeable and a difficult cost to bear for acompany that may already be struggling with the impactof the current economic downturn.

What many companies fail to realise, however, is that potentially difficult waste sorting and segregationprocesses, such as picking out plastics, wood and metalsthat would have gone to landfill five years ago, can now behandled with relative ease. So a small skip company thatsends its municipal solid waste (MSW), construction anddemolition waste, and other commercial and industrialwaste to a larger waste transfer processor, is effectivelythrowing money away.

Even if the company picks out the ‘easy recyclables’ before sending it on, it is effectively turning its back onthe possibility of extracting further recyclable materials.A small company could receive up to 40 tonnes of plasticwaste a month for example, and with prices rising again,this would in fact provide a welcome additional revenuestream. This would easily cover the cost of the shreddingequipment required to make this a profitable recyclable.

Education about the possibilities is crucial to moving forward, yet Government assistance is sporadic – helpfulschemes pop up but then quickly fall by the wayside. Theresponsibility perhaps therefore lies with the waste man-agement and transfer industry, to promote the benefits ofadvanced technologies and be a constant source of infor-mation and advice.

The industry should not exist solely to supply and distributemachinery. Rather, we have a duty of care to share our insight and help clients design efficient and cost-effectivewaste management processes and solutions. Such advicewill not only reap considerable rewards for clients, but itwill enable the industry to stake a much deserved claimon the contribution it is making to environmental improvement.


The wood recycling industry is still a relative infant; 20years ago, it did not exist in the form that we now see it.However, the infant is now out of diapers and growing upfast. Where 10 years ago something like 95% of all recycledwood found its way to the panel-board mills, that figurehas fallen to 55%. This trend does not mean that the de-livered tonnages have fallen sharply, although there hasbeen a slight dip recently as the panel-board mills havestruggled through a deep and enduring national recession.No; the fact is that other markets have emerged to providecompetition for the panel-board industry and valuablenew opportunities for wood recyclers.

Among these new markets we have animal bedding forcattle, horses and poultry. This is a high-quality productwhich fetches good prices but first requires significant investment in machinery and quality testing procedures.Meanwhile, land applications – composts, mulches and soon – are also on the increase and, together with animalbedding, account for about 25% of the industry’s output ofabout 2 million tonnes per year. Finally, and perhaps mostsignificantly, we have the new kid on the block – biomass.This new market threatens to change the wood recyclingindustry significantly and I will return to it later.

The same powerful growth curve that we see in the industryapplies equally to our trade body, the Wood Recyclers’Association (or WRA). Formed only 9 years back, in 2001,it has now grown relentlessly – despite the recent recession- to include 65 member companies. These companiescover the whole of the UK and vary considerably in size.At the one end we have a number of small family-run enterprises, some combining wood recycling with otheractivities such as composting. At the other end we havelarge multi-site operations, some of which offer high-technology products – like the animal bedding to which Ihave already referred - which meet the most exactingcustomer standards.

And the WRA is becoming a broad church. Initially con-sisting only of wood processors, it has expanded to embracea number of service members who provide plant and

machinery for the industry, most of it ever more complexand capable. Furthermore, we now count among our numbersome companies who use post-consumer wood to produceenergy, and others who are linked directly to panel-boardfactories. We have specialist consultants of various hues,a widely respected research and development companyand have just signed up our first Government agency.

To some, all this might seem to jeopardise the purity ofour association. But I see it differently. As a young industry,to have this variety of experience on tap is invaluable,both to the WRA and to its members. We are en route toproviding, from within our own ranks, an impressiverange of skills and knowledge which will benefit both theindustry as a whole and also the individual companieswho work in it. From my perspective, membership of theWRA offers value as never before.

That said, there are still many wood recycling businesseswho are not WRA members. We estimate that our membersprobably account, between them, for about 70% of the recycled wood output in the UK, but we remain keen totalk to those who represent the other 30%. Our eligibilitycriteria for membership are stringent, as you would expect,but any bona fide business which has been in the woodrecycling game for 12 months may expect to be accepted.Details are available on: www.woodrecyclers.org.

There is much going on. One year ago, we won the right,via an EA/WRAP competition, to develop a quality protocol(QP) for post-consumer wood. Work started in Novemberand, all being well, we shall have completed the QP oneyear from now. The WRA has provided a number of mem-bers to the Technical Advisory Group which is central tothe QP work, so we have been very closely involved in itsdevelopment from the word go.

What is the QP all about? In short, a QP defines the pointat which wood will cease to be a waste and achieve productstatus. This status promises considerable benefits, interms of a reduced administrative workload, improved export opportunities and the general standing of the woodrecycling industry. It is still too early to tell how many

Clem Spencer, Wood Yew Waste,Chairman, WRA


products the QP will embrace; much depends on the riskassessments and financial impact statements which arecurrently being formulated. But our aim is to get all ourproducts – panel-board, animal bedding, land applicationsand even biomass – under the QP umbrella and removethem from the dreaded “waste” tag. If we can achievethis, it will be an enormous fillip for our young industry.

In an ideal world, before we embarked on the QP, wewould have already established a set of standards for recycled wood. That we did not do so reflects the newnessof wood recycling. However, WRAP – to whom we are indebted in a number of ways – has funded this project,which is currently being undertaken by BSI. Again, theWRA is very closely involved in the work, which should bythe end of this year have achieved PAS111, the publiclyavailable specification which will relate purely to post-consumer wood. One of our objectives, as the PAS111 andQP exercises proceed more or less in parallel, must be toensure that their findings are entirely compatible. This isnot as easy as it may sound and we see the presence onboth teams of experienced, knowledgeable WRA membersas a critical factor in the eventual achievement of this aim.

One of the major benefits which should emerge from thisactivity, I hope, will be that the confusion that has long existed over wood treatments will be removed, or at leastradically reduced, once and for all. The very word “treated”,in the context of post-consumer wood, is often the causeof untold, and unwarranted, alarm. But treatments varyenormously. A tiny few are highly toxic but many more arecompletely harmless, while in the middle there are manywhose environmental impact is a matter of proportionalmix. There has been a tendency to ham-string wood recy-clers by looking at all treated wood as if it were a seriousdanger to all forms of life. I only hope that the QP and PASwork will help dispel this myth and make it easier for recyclers to go their lawful business.

Apart from this, change is coming at us from all sides.The new EA permitting legislation will affect a significantnumber of wood recyclers because the new tonnage limits will oblige many who operate under an exemptionto obtain an environmental permit before April 2012. TheWRA believes that, ideally, all wood recyclers should consider obtaining a permit. But without question, thiswill prove difficult for some because of local environmentaland planning difficulties. Wood recyclers do not naturallymake good neighbours and, with environmental watchdogsand lobbyists becoming ever more vocal, life is not gettingany easier for those whose sites are close to centres ofpopulation.

This raises an important point. In my experience, woodrecyclers are conscious that their activities are not alwayswelcome and most of us work very hard indeed work hardto be good neighbours. It is important that, going forward,those who have a responsibility to protect the environment do not lose sight of the fact that recyclingplays an important role in protecting that very same envi-ronment. If strictures on the wood recycling industry become unduly severe, we will all be the losers. And with

Government currently looking into the feasibility of banning the landfilling of wood (an initiative which theWRA fully supports, by the way), moves to hobble the activities of wood recyclers threaten to work directlyagainst that objective.

Perhaps I can finish by returning to the theme of biomass.When it first appeared over the horizon, biomass wasseen by many in my industry as a golden opportunity toreduce our reliance on the panel-board mills and open upa valuable new market. And what a huge market it prom-ises to be. It is still very early days, of course. Most of thebiomass installations which are already operating in thiscountry are “non-WID compliant”. This is another areawhere too much confusion reigns and the upshot so farhas been that recycled wood, even the cleanest, has quitewrongly been widely regarded as unfit for non-WID boilers.Again, I hope that the QP and PAS work may help correctsome very muddled thinking on this score.

But the truth is that, as things stand, recycled wood’s onlynormal biomass market is the (mainly much larger) WID-compliant installations which have elaborate emissioncontrols and can therefore burn lower quality fuels. Atpresent, there are very few of these up and running in theUK but if all those currently locked into the planningprocess were to come on-line, they would swamp theUK’s supplies of biomass material. Wood is only one ofabout 25 materials which can potentially fuel a biomassboiler but it is a significant player in the UK. The demandsof large biomass plants will undoubtedly put considerablepressure on our industry, which is already very much supply-driven in many parts of the country.

Furthermore, as I see it, the owners of huge and hungrybiomass plants will not wish to do business with theirlocal recycler. They will work through middle-men whocan aggregate the output of numerous recycling yardsand then deal direct, on a single contract, with the plant.We are already seeing the effects of this in the way thatcertain WRA members are developing their operations.Although I cannot visualise exactly how, or to what extent,it will affect our industry in the longer term, affect us itwill. There can be no doubt about this.

So the wood recycling industry has come a long way in ashort time. Even so, you ain’t seen nothing yet, as theysay! Government work now underway promises to take usto a whole new level of credibility. Meanwhile, new marketsopen up extraordinary opportunities for us but they alsoimpose the need to reflect on how we do business and toadapt to changing conditions if we are to reap the fullbenefit. There is much to play for over the years ahead.

Perhaps I can end with another plug for the WRA. In arapidly developing industry such as ours, only throughmembership of its trade association can its protagonistshope to keep abreast of what is going on. Knowledge ispower and the WRA offers this in abundance. So if anywood recycler reading this is not a WRA member, there isno better time to remedy that situation. Come and join us;I promise you won’t regret it!


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Recoup – RECycling Of Used Plastics, the leading UK authority on plastics packaging recycling – is keen to helpincrease the amount of domestic plastics packaging thatcan be recycled.

However, there are a number of considerations in relationto the planned increases in plastic packaging targets asset out by Defra in the recent packaging strategy consul-tation document. In particular, any targets must take intoaccount the current infrastructure for domestic plasticspackaging collection, handling and reprocessing, and howit can be sustainably developed without compromising existing activities, particularly plastic bottle recycling.

2008 and 2009 saw an increase both in plastic packagingcollection levels and in overall UK MRF capacity. Currently,very few UK MRFs have the ability to sort both plastic bottles and mixed plastics into separate streams – letalone then segregate each of these fractions into desig-nated plastic types. So where mixed plastics are collectedfrom householders, this commonly results in a singlelower grade plastic output which cannot be reprocessedby the UK bottle reprocessing infrastructure and willtherefore often be exported.

Despite calls from the major players in the bottle repro-cessing sector for an improvement in bale quality, thequality of recovered plastic bottles is polarised, and generally deteriorating. This has come as a result ofwider collection of non bottle plastics through kerbsideand bring schemes, particularly within the past two years.

The progressive inclusion of mixed plastics within baledbottles means that the need for sorting prior to repro-cessing is increased. These ‘on costs’ provide an incentiveto sell material for reprocessing overseas, due to verycompetitive material values because of the lower sortingcosts.

In 2010 therefore we now see increased levels of baledplastics with a greater proportion of non bottle materialoccurring. Price reductions for bales with greater propor-tions of non plastic bottles present are reducing MRFsales values with gate fees and rejected loads of lowgrade bottles and mixed plastic packaging becomingmore frequent.

There are also operational reasons for questioning theproposed increases in plastic packaging recycling. Inmost sorting facilities/MRFs the incoming material fromkerbside (and from bring sites) is screened to removesmall fines and contaminants. In practice this means thatplastic bottles less than 100 ml are generally removed bytrommels/screen systems. This material is usually thendirected to landfill.

For non bottle rigid mixed plastic products the likelylosses through trommels/screens would be significantlyhigher than for bottles. This is due to the higher proportionof small products in this packaging sector and the greatertendency for these items to flatten during the collectionprocess and in the material handling and storage stagesbefore entry to the sorting process. A small number of UKMRFs at the present time hand sort a mixed film fraction

SUSTAINABLE APPROACHCALLED FOR AS NEWPLASTIC PACKAGING RECYCLING TARGETS ARE PROPOSEDBy Stuart Foster, Director, Recoup


at the beginning of their process – usually sacks and carrier bags which are used for kerbside collections inpreference to wheel bins or boxes.

In 2009, Recoup produced a ‘Domestic mixed plasticpackaging recycling’ position statement supported byAWS Eco Plastics and J & A Young – two of the UK’slargest plastics sorters and reprocessors who have directexperience of plastic bottle handling and also the emerg-ing levels of mixed plastics being collected.

The guide advised that the collection of mixed plasticsshould only occur if it was clear that it was possible tosort the material and that end markets existed. Mixedflexible packaging formats (plastic film) does not passthis test, so the guide recommends collecting only rigidplastic packaging at the present time.

Black plastics are also excluded given that they cannot beidentified or separated using existing commercially avail-able technology.

To test the market options, Recoup has been approachingplastic handlers and reprocessors with bales of goodquality mixed baled pots, tubs and trays and also withbaled domestic film. Neither attract a positive value, a fewreprocessors will charge a gate fee and many others aresimply not interested. We have also been advised that themost financially sensible option may be to blend the mixedplastic back together with bottles, re-bale and export.

Increased mixed plastic collections will progressivelycompromise attempts to segregate bottles at MRFs. Increasing cross contamination of plastic with other recy-clables such as newspapers and magazines, cardboardand cans will have a further impact on MRF materialquality. In order to maintain quality standards additionalnear infra-red (NIR) equipment and/or manual inspectionwill need to be placed on the paper and can elements ofsorting lines.

UK MRFs currently do not generally have the capability toretro fit additional equipment, or have space to sort nonbottle rigids or film. Recoup believes this is one of thefirst challenges to overcome.

A key consideration in developing mixed plastics packagingcollections from the domestic waste stream is the issueof identifying the right, effective consumer messages andthen communicating these to the householder.

There is currently a range of methods of promoting mixedplastic collections to householders. This inconsistency isnot helped by the recent attempts to adopt on-pack labelingto denote the recyclability of a wide variety of mixed plasticsin a wide range of collection systems. Recoup believesthat it should be reprocessors that decide whether anygiven plastic is recyclable, not manufacturers, retailers,government agencies or waste management companies(via provision of a collection service).

Material specification should be identified initially by thereprocessor/end market. This specification should thenbe translated by the collection scheme into instructions

suitable for the householders. The collection schemeshould work closely with the sorting facility/MRF to ensurethat acceptable material quality is collected and, followingsorting, is capable of meeting the reprocessor’s specification.

Each year Recoup produces a widely referenced ‘UKhousehold plastics packaging collection survey’ based onlocal authority supplied information. An email question-naire to capture the latest data was circulated in May andwe would encourage those who have not responded yet todo so. Every respondent receives a copy of the final surveyreport, which will be launched this year at the RWM exhi-bition in September where Recoup has a stand.

The 2009 edition showed that 49 local authorities are nowactively collecting other plastics in addition to bottlesfrom kerbside. The total weight of other plastics collectedwas reported at 22,700 tonnes, although this is expectedto be an under estimate. The local authorities that arecollecting other plastics are increasingly accepting allformats of plastic packaging, because this removes theneed for complex consumer messages, and there are anincreasing number of contractors and handling facilitiesaccepting this lower quality material on the basis that thevaluable plastic bottles are also supplied.

Without a focused effort, there is the danger that thegrowing plastic bottle recycling infrastructure in the UK,including the recent growth in food grade reprocessingcapacity cannot be sustainably supported by UK bottlecollections.

However, the latest survey also highlighted some potentialimprovements for the future. Local authority responsessuggest that kerbside schemes will recover 194,000tonnes of bottles in 2011, representing an additional25,000 tonnes. If a 10 per cent yearly increase in house-hold plastic bottle kerbside coverage could be achieved inaddition to planned developments, the tonnage fromkerbside collections in 2011 could reach more than257,000 tonnes. If a 10 per cent increase in performancewas also applied (based on kg/hh/year), the estimatedcollection could be more than 342,000 tonnes.


This suggests that a focus on increasing plastic bottlekerbside infrastructure and performance per householdwill be key to boosting existing recycling rates andachieve the step change desired. This gives a clear indica-tion that not only do we need to provide every UK house-hold with a kerbside plastic bottle collection service; wealso need to develop a strategic communications programmeto ensure that householders use the collection service pro-vided. Average participation rates are reported at approximately 60%.

There is also scope to increase plastic bottle collectionfrom other sources – notably from consumer-facing ‘onthe go’ initiatives.

Earlier this year, Recoup held a ‘Recycle on the Go’ eventin Birmingham that aimed to maximize efficient plasticsrecycling, increase recycling points and material volumeswhilst driving towards a change in current recycling be-haviour. The day also aimed to enable those with a newscheme or thinking about a ‘Recycle on the Go’ scheme toget all the information they required to make it a success.

Successful operation of Recycling on the Go schemesacross the UK could divert many thousands of tonnes ofplastic bottles from landfill, aid resource efficiency andimprove carbon management.

Working in partnership with a number of organisationsRecoup has been involved in various recycle on the go activities since 2002 through specific projects, conferencesand general advice. Recoup now feels that there is a needfor a focal point to share learning, provide access to variousprojects and bring together key stakeholders.

Recoup is inviting key stakeholders from across the Recycle on the Go arena, in the UK and further afield, tobecome founding members of a new international Recycleon the Go platform (www.recycleonthego.info). This willnot be restricted to plastic as the opportunity needs to beconsidered and developed from a multi material inte-grated approach.

Recoup understands that within the proposed Defra targets some 250,000 tonnes or 27% of household flexiblemixed plastics are to be recycled by 2020. This is planned

to be achieved by a progressive increase in recyclingmixed flexible plastics from 2011.

Some operators mix plastic bags with other higher valuefilm to improve prices paid for the material and to achievethe best export price. No provisions exist in UK MRF’s tosegregate the huge quantity of small lightweight itemswhich make up the bulk of film within the domestic wastestream. In the event that domestic film was included inhousehold recyclables collection schemes the negativeimpact on material quality, in particular newspapers andmagazines, would be severe.

Even the latest laser sorting equipment is currently unableto provide the necessary quality of separation. Unless themajority of plastic film is removed prior to the laser de-tection unit, sort accuracy is likely to be seriously affectedas a result of the shadowing and overlay /underlay of theplastic film near other rigid plastic items.

If the proposed plastic targets are implemented the resultis expected to be widespread contamination of other collected materials, significant damage to handling effi-ciencies in MRFs and reduced values for sorted materials.It will also result in an increasing amount of plasticsbeing exported to such countries as China, restricting theUK industry opportunity. This is not seen as a sustainableoption given the fluctuation in demand and value, changingChinese legislation and import requirements, and alsotheir ability to not take any UK plastic for extended periods,as last witnessed in late 2008.

Increased targets will encourage increases in the amountof ‘recyclable’ plastics material identified to be collected.This collection is likely to be at the expense of the materialquality required to maintain a viable reprocessing industry.

With the current lack of technology and infrastructure tohandle and sort flexible plastic packaging, we believethese materials should not be collected or handledthrough the existing kerbside and MRF infrastructure,and only form part of the future recycling targets if an alternative collection and handling solution is found.

Looking ahead, Recoup fully supports increased plasticsrecycling and is keen to ensure that recycling and recoveryoptions are practical, environmentally sound and - as withany business plan - also sustainable. Importantly, any adverse impacts of extending domestic mixed plastic col-lection infrastructure need to be properly understood.

The key barrier to increasing plastic bottle recycling iscollection, whereas the issues surrounding other rigidand flexible plastics packaging recycling are a result of alack of suitable handling and sorting infrastructure, aswell as very limited indigenous end markets that needfurther development. It is certain that the packaging consultation will result in increased targets for plastic recycling but the level of this increase will dictatewhether the required infrastructure and step changes arecommercially achievable within the required timeframe.


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The wait is almost over for Futuresource 2010,Europe’s sustainability event, which takes placeat London ExCeL in June. The show will soonopen its doors revealing products, services,plant and equipment from more than 300 exhibitors, which represent the very best avail-able in the environmental and waste sector, aswell as a packed conference programme andlots more besides.

The show, now in its 2nd year, is organised bythe CIWM (Chartered Institution of WastesManagement) and the ESA (EnvironmentalServices Association) and covers everything fromfood waste solutions to finance and from EfWto efficiency savings. The aim is to stimulatedialogue and partnerships that will help thesector to tackle some of the big challengesthat lie ahead. Bringing together an expected9,000 public, private and third sector profes-sionals, it is an ideal platform for debate,knowledge sharing and networking - so if your business is waste, recycling, and resourceefficiency then Futuresource is the one showin the UK exhibition calendar you cannot affordto miss.

The three-day conference has ‘More fromLess’ as its core theme, with a strong focus onefficiency, value for money and partnerships.

“Our industry, like many others, is facing sometough challenges. Targets and performanceexpectations are going up, budgets are shrink-ing and will continue to do so, and access to finance for new infrastructure is harder tocome by,” says CIWM Chief Executive SteveLee. “Difficult decisions will need to be madewithout compromising our ability to continueto work towards the equally important impera-tive of delivering a more sustainable approachto waste and resources in the long term.”

Top of the agenda in the opening session will

be the political landscape and future environ-mental policy. Key speakers from Europe willshare the stage with UK Government ministersto provide the big picture on the role of thesustainable waste and resource managementsector in tackling climate change and what direction European and UK environmental policy will take in the future. In the afternoon,ministers and senior policy officials fromacross the British Isles will share their viewsabout what ‘zero waste’ really means and howit can be delivered.

The critical role of local authorities is ac-knowledged on day two with sessions that explore how partnerships can help to delivermore efficient environmental services acrossthe UK, with speakers looking at good practicesupport, finance, and forging better relationshipswith the retail sector. The afternoon sessionbrings together a series of case studies thatwill give delegates practical insight into someof the UK’s most innovative partnership approaches.

Day three of the conference will see wider resource efficiency issues on the agenda, including the impact of the EU’s Waste Frame-work Directive, as well as the challenges ofchoosing, funding and delivering the righttreatment infrastructure.

SMART SOLUTIONS

In the Futuresource trade fair, meanwhile,over 300 exhibitors will showcase the latestpractical solutions, services and products designed to enhance productivity and keepcosts down. The free-to-attend exhibition covers six key areas: waste and water man-agement; recycling and composting; profes-sional services; air, energy and climatechange; street scene and facilities management;


and vehicles and plant. Highlighting the growinglinks between the waste, water and energysectors, this year the event is supported bymajor organisations including the Energy Institute and CIWEM.

The exhibition boasts some of the industry’sbiggest names, from the UK’s leading wastecontractors – including Waste Recycling Group,Veolia Environmental Services, SITA UK, CoryEnvironmental Ltd, and Viridor Waste Ltd –through to technology and equipment suppliers,financial institutions, consultants and vehicleand plant manufacturers. In addition, Govern-ment departments and agencies, including the Environment Agency, Defra, the Welsh Assembly Government and WRAP will have apresence.

With infrastructure development being ac-knowledged as one of the biggest challengesfacing the sector, the 2010 exhibitor line-upalso underlines the growing interest in thesector from civil engineering and utility com-panies and the finance sector. Balfour Beatty,Costain Ltd, May Gurney Ltd, United Utilities,

Vinci Environment UK, Volker Fitzpatrick, Raymond Brown Group, and BAM Nuttall Ltdhave already signed up, as well as financial institutions including Bank of Ireland andClydesdale Bank plc.

Once again this year, there is plenty of expertiseand innovation on show. In the Waste & WaterManagement Zone (Blue Zone), visitors will findall the big names, including BAM Nuttall, amajor player in the water and sewerage indus-try and Cambi AS, recently awarded a contractfor the largest Cambi Thermal Hydrolysis plant ever built.

For those interested in advanced thermaltreatment, Advanced Plasma Power (APP) isreturning to Futuresource for the second time.APP’s process is an advanced conversion tech-nology (Gasplasma) that combines conventionalfluid bed gasification, which the company saysradically reduces the power consumption andoperating costs associated with direct plasma-gasification, with plasma arc conversion of the‘dirty’ syngas. This system produces a clean,

Finning/Cat - Finning reported that the D7E uses 10 to 30% fuel


hydrogen rich syngas, overcoming, accordingto APP, the major obstacle to the use of gasifi-cation of waste to power gas engines.

Visitors will find Recycling and Composting ex-hibitors in the green zone, which is the largestarea of the show with more than 76 companiesoffering services ranging from turf renovationto wood recycling and from recycling bins andbanks to organic food waste digesters.

Sokton UK is exhibiting a particular innovativesystem at this year’s show - undergroundwaste containers. The company will also havea working demonstration of the undergroundcontainer being emptied at the show – the veryfirst time this will have been seen in the UK.

Inashco BV, meanwhile, will be promoting itsbottom ash recycling service to the municipalwaste incineration industry. The company’s aimis to maximize economic and environmentalbenefits by optimizing recycling effectiveness.

Visitors to the green zone will also be able tosee Bywaters’ unique ‘Bycycler’ system in action around the exhibition hall, as Bywatersis providing the recycling service for the event.In line with the proximity principle, the dry recyclables collected will be taken to Bywaters’Recycling and Recovery Centre and site visitswill be available during the event.

The Professional Services (purple) Zone is

home to a range of exhibitors, including consultancies, financial institutions and IT solution providers. Whitespace Waste Software,for example, will be using Futuresource tolaunch its hosted delivery service for PowerSuite, a market-leading environmental andwaste management solution for UK local authorities. According to Whitespace, the outsourced service means that UK councilswill no longer have the expense of owning andsupporting IT infrastructure – or face the challenge of keeping data safe.

Meltog will be on hand to share its expertise inindustrial shredding and waste managementsolutions, while Peel Environmental willdemonstrate to visitors how the company is atthe forefront of developing low carbon solutionsto the waste and energy challenges in the UKthrough creation of Resource Recovery Parks.

The Air, Energy and Climate Change Zone ishome to a range of leading companies, includingEco Angus Ltd, filtration specialists W L Goreand Associates (UK) Ltd, and Stratus Environ-mental Ltd, a multidisciplinary planning, designand engineering consultancy specialising inproviding development services to waste man-agement and renewable energy companies.

Another key area of the show is the StreetScene & Facilities Management (red) Zone,where visitors can find an exciting array of new

Sokton - Underground Waste System


concepts, from low emission sweepers to thelatest waste containment solutions.

This year Contenur will be displaying a rangeof wheeled bins modified for the segregationof recyclable materials, together with purposemade lock-down frames with header boardsdepicting the types of material for separation.Also new on the stand will be the company’srange of post mounted and free standing litterbins, either moulded in plastic or forged fromcast aluminium, and Contenur’s newly designedunderground waste system, with stylish disposalcolumns and available for either crane lift orhydraulic lift using existing refuse collectionvehicles.

Look out too for Linpac Environmental whichis extending its popular Envirobin range withthe introduction of the ‘Midi’. This 82 litre,space saving unit, with WRAP compliantgraphics and signage, can be used individuallyaround offices or simply linked with otherunits to form a ‘recycling zone’ in larger areas.

The Plant & Vehicle (silver) Zone will also behome to cutting edge solutions, with leadingmanufacturers showing the very latest ‘greenmachines’, providing solutions to economicand environmental challenges in the automo-tive and material handling sectors.

Blue Group will be highlighting its latest product developments in the burgeoning fieldof the pre-treatment of materials for anaerobicdigestion and RDF production for energy fromwaste, and E H Hassell & Sons is launchingthe new Sennebogen 818 recycling machine tothe UK market.

Liebherr-Great Britain will display two materialshandling machines, specifically designed andbuilt for municipal and commercial wastemanagement, transfer stations and recyclingoperations, while JCB will show three of the 25

model Wastemaster range: the popular andunique Teletruk 35D, a 416 HT wheeled loadingshovel and a JS160W wheeled excavator complete with hydraulically raised cab.

Finning Caterpillar, meanwhile, is promisingan exciting display of a number of speciallyadapted waste handling machines. The machinethat will take centre stage on the company’sstand will be the new D7E electric drive dozer.Finning Caterpillar report that the D7E uses10 to 30% less fuel and, on average, moves10% more material per hour than its industry-leading predecessor, the Cat D7R.

Refuse collection hasn’t been forgotten either,with Farid Municipal Vehicles showing a wholenew concept in recycling in the form of theMicro-Duo, which has two 100% fully sealedleak proof compartments - a body and pod.This allows flexibility to collect food waste inone compartment, whilst collecting dry recy-clables separately in the other.

Dennis Eagle , which recently launched its firstnew refuse vehicle body design for eight years,will be showing the new range at Futuresourceand Terberg Matec UK is back with additionalstand space and a very different product fromthe Terberg design team in the shape of theKTZ underground and over-ground waste col-lection and transportation system.

Terberg is also showing the Kerbsider®Combi TD, which offers complete, “at thekerbside” segregation of food waste and dryrecyclable fractions, providing a single vehiclesolution for collection duties that might ordinarily require two vehicles and crews.

Mechanical sweeper manufacturer Dulevo isshowing a new machine which produces ‘zeroemissions, the 5000 Zero, which is the onlymechanical sweeper in the world that runs onmethane. The sweeper also guarantees


minimum noise emissions, no emission ofdust into the atmosphere and no pollution – anabsolute dream machine for local authorities!

Adding to the excitement will be the new ZEVZone, an interactive demonstration arena ded-icated to ‘zero emission’ vehicles and plant forthe waste and recycling sector. Offering visitorsthe chance to inspect the new equipment, seeit in action and test their operating skills, theZEV Zone will have something for everyonefrom materials handling to street cleansing.One of the star attractions will be the new all-electric Solmec 360 materials handler. This isvery the first time this Italian-built unit has beenseen in the UK. At the other end of the scalewill be road-going electric vehicles from spe-cialist manufacturers such as Bradshaw, andJohnston Sweepers’ prototype compact electricsweeper, which is still under development.

EXTENSIVE FREE SEMINAR PROGRAMME AND COMMUNICATIONS HUB DEBATES

Also on the exhibition floor, visitors can accessover 50 free seminar sessions on highly topicalissues – from anaerobic digestion to planning,and from exports to energy from waste – attwo Information Theatres. As well as speakersfrom the Environment Agency, WRAP, Valpak,United Utilities, Pathway to Zero Waste andLondon Thames Gateway, the programme includes a series of seminars by the LGA andRIEPs focused on ‘Helping councils do more

with less’. A full seminar programme can befound at www.futuresourceuk.com/semi-narprogramme.

Sauce Consultancy and CIWM are also teamingup again, this year with the Associate Parlia-mentary Sustainable Resource Group, to hostthe Communications Hub, where visitors canhear an exciting array of speakers debatesome of the communications challenges thatface our industry. The line-up includes PeterAinsworth, former Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs, FT Environment Correspon-dent Fiona Harvey, Bobby Duffy, Managing Director of Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute,Michael Warhurst of Friends of the Earth, andRhion Jones, Programme Director at the Con-sultation Institute. Former BBC news reporterSteve Bustin will be giving tips on ‘Making themost out of media’ every morning and providingfree media training sessions (sessions can bebooked by emailing [email protected]).

This year, senior public sector professionalscan also explore the opportunities for smarter,greener procurement, thanks to a new co-location agreement with Guardian News &Media’s (GNM) sector-leading Public Procure-ment Show 2010 (www.publicprocure-mentshow.com).

Full details of the event and online booking forthe conference can be found at www.future-sourceuk.com

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In itself, a title like this means little. But in Sault Ste. Marie,Canada, it means a lot.

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From windmills and cogeneration projects, to hydroelectricstations and a waste-to-energy venture, the Ontario city isthe epitome of renewable and alternative energy sources.Grouped together, these initiatives make it the “AlternativeEnergy Capital of North America.”

Not convinced? Try these on for size:

Wind and Hydro

The community is home to the Prince Wind Farm, one ofthe largest wind energy farms on the continent. The site’s126 turbines can produce 189 megawatts of renewableenergy, enough to power two centres the size of Sault Ste.Marie, a city with a population of more than 75,000.

As well, there are five hydroelectric stations in the SaultSte. Marie area. Together, they produce 203 megawatts ofrenewable energy. The wind farm and hydro dams are operated by Brookfield Renewable Power Inc.

Waste-to-Energy

Meanwhile, Elementa Group is working on a demonstrationplant to convert all of Sault Ste. Marie’s curbside garbageinto clean energy. The company uses a steam reformation

process that vaporizes solid waste into a synthetic gas –similar to natural gas – which will then be used to generatemore than five megawatts of electricity.

As it’s a non-incineration process in an oxygen-free envi-ronment, there are minimal toxic emissions. Simply put,Elementa creates clean energy without the bad greenhousegas. As such, the company’s cutting-edge technology con-tinues to draw attention from investors around the world.

Part of Elementa Group’s steamreformation system, which vapor-izes solid waste into synthetic gas.

By Marc Capancioni and John Febbraro

What’s in a name? Canadian city lives up to its title of “Alternative Energy Capital of North America”


Solar

On the solar energy front, Sault Ste. Marie is also an active player. The first 20 megawatts of Pod GeneratingGroup’s solar farm is scheduled to be in operation by theend of summer. The construction of an additional 40megawatts will start in the next few months and is expected to be in operation at year’s end. With a 60megawatt capacity, this project will power 21,000 homesand be one of the largest solar energy farms in NorthAmerica.

The community recently entered the solar panel manu-facturing game as well. With the help of a $2.5-million investment from the Province of Ontario, Heliene Canadais establishing a facility that will assemble enough high-efficiency photovoltaic panels to generate 20 megawattsof renewable power each year.

Tyre Recycling

Sault Ste. Marie will also be the home of a cutting-edgetyre recycling facility. Ellsin Environmental will use reversepolymerization, a cutting-edge process that breaks downtyres into their original elements: steel, carbon black andoil. Separated, each component is valuable and can bereused for a variety of purposes, including power generation.

Ellsin’s project is made possible thanks to the ‘Used TireProgram’ from the provincial government’s Waste DiversionOntario. The initiative aims to divert and clean up existingstockpiles of scrap tyres. Incentives are in place, andEllsin will be utilising them in its Sault Ste. Marie tyre recycling operation.

Cogeneration

On top of all these Green initiatives, Essar Steel Algoma,the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie, recently estab-lished a cogeneration power project that utilises excessgas from the steelmaking process. The $135-million projectreduces the company’s reliance on the power grid by anaverage of 50%. It also reduces Essar’s nitrous oxideemissions by 15%.

Another cogeneration project in Sault Ste. Marie, operatedby Brookfield Renewable Power, consists of two 40megawatt natural gas turbines and one 30 megawattsteam turbine.

Municipal Projects

Meantime, the municipal government will collect gasfrom its landfill site by December 2010. The local PublicUtilities Commission proposes to then use the gas to gen-erate electricity. This adds to the municipal Green initiatives already in place, including the utilisation ofbiodiesel buses and heavy equipment, and incorporatinghybrid vehicles into its fleet.

In front of a photovoltaic solar panel are (L to R): Martin Pochtaruk,President of Heliene Canada; Councillor Steve Butland, Co-Chair ofthe city’s Green Committee; David Orazietti, member of ProvincialParliament for Sault Ste. Marie; and Denis Turcotte, an investor inHeliene Canada.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announces his government’ssupport of a tyre recycling project from Ellsin Environmental.


What’s on tap for the next Green initiative in Sault Ste.Marie?

Oilseed and Fibre Crop

With enough farmland and a suitable climate, the area isa prime location for this industry. And with proper leader-ship and investment, Sault Ste. Marie can be a leadingcentre of oilseed and fibre crop production. The alternativeenergy technology involves harvesting crops and extractingsubstances from them to generate power. A local firm,SITTM Technologies, is currently working with other organisations to grow this sector in the city and region.

Working Together

To have such a wide-range of projects at the table, a teamis needed. Along with various private-sector proponents,city council and staff, the Sault Ste. Marie Economic De-velopment Corp., Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre andother organisations have been at the forefront of many ofthese Green initiatives for a number of years.

It takes a group effort – involving the public, private andnon-profit sectors – to be successful in such a progressivearea. The community’s progress in recent years is a testament to this.

When you group these projects together, you get the “Alternative Energy Capital of North America”. But in SaultSte. Marie, it’s not just a name. Rather, it’s a consensusfor building a sustainable planet for future generations toenjoy.

And along the way, Green jobs will be created, which willhelp position the community for long-term growth andprosperity.

For more information, visit www.sault-canada.com.

Marc Capancioni is Communications Co-ordinator for theSault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corp. He holds amaster’s degree in journalism from the University ofWestern Ontario. You can reach him [email protected].

John Febbraro is Acting Executive Director of DevelopmentSault Ste. Marie, a division of the Sault Ste. Marie EconomicDevelopment Corp. He has more than 20 years experiencein industrial marketing and business consulting. You canreach him at [email protected].

At the groundbreaking ceremony for Heliene Canada’s solar panel manufac-turing facility are (L to R): John Febbraro from the Sault Ste. Marie EconomicDevelopment Corp., Heliene investor Denis Turcotte, member of ProvincialParliament David Orazietti, Heliene President Martin Pochtaruk, and CityCouncillor Steve Butland.


Hold up a mirror to the industry we work in, and you’rereminded of its vibrancy and constantly changing nature.The environmental sector is growing fast and changingrapidly. The number of people working in the environmentalsector is expected to top one million within the next twentyyears - more than double the 2008 figures of 400,000. It isalso diverse, with an exciting range of jobs and breadth ofindustry sectors that environmental professionals can workin. Lantra estimates that there are more than 300 skilledand managerial job roles to choose from in the sector.

Being a relatively young sector, environmental jobs tendto attract people who are in the early stages of theirworking lives. Of the 2,000+ environmental professionalssurveyed for IEMA’s 2010 Practitioner’s Survey, almost aquarter are in their twenties and more than two fifths areunder 35 years old. This age profile is reflected in the experience profile, as just under three quarters said theirexperience as an environmental professional amounted toten years or less and two fifths have clocked up no morethan five years.

In such a fast moving sector with huge impacts on all aspects of business performance, reputable professionaltraining is vital for everyone working in the environmentsector, whatever their level, business size and type.

Legislation and government targets change rapidly andorganisations that help their employees develop newskills will reap the benefit of their enhanced knowledge.On a personal level, those that invest in professionaltraining will not only be better equipped to do their job butwill see their prospects expand hand in hand.

The holistic approachToday environmental professionals should not considerthemselves working in isolation but operating within a holistic integrated business process. They therefore needto develop an understanding of how their business operatesand work at the appropriate level within the business. Engagement with the business planning process is key toan environmental professional being effective.

Liz Hopkins is quality and environmental manager atParkwood Holdings, a provider of support services topublic and private sector clients. Employing 6,000 people,Parkwood Holdings services include grounds management,leisure management, healthcare and consultancy services.Having joined the organisation as a graduate trainee, Lizagrees that business acumen is essential for those working in environmental roles.

“Everyone wants to do the right thing but it has to belinked to business and the bottom line,” comments Liz.“With a basic knowledge of business, the environmentmanager can justify to the board why environmental concerns must be addressed and why a particular standardis the best for that business. The environment aspect of afirm is inextricably linked to the bottom line and all environmental managers need to recognise this.”

And it’s not just environmental professionals consideringthe way their responsibilities impact the business as awhole. Senior managers should in turn equip themselveswith a basic knowledge of the key environmental factorsaffecting their business - whether it’s environmental legislation, waste management or producer responsibility.

Max Linnemann of NQAlooks at the array of pro-fessional training optionsopen to those working inthe environment sector.

Train to get ahead


If the management team is well informed and has boughtinto the reasons for implementing an EMS, the environ-mental manager will find their job easier and be more effective.

New to environmental management?It is common for people working as quality and health &safety managers to find themselves handed environmentalresponsibility as a bolt-on to their existing job. This maybe a unique situation linked to the prominence of the greenagenda in all aspects of modern life – and as firms seethe need to address environmental concerns an environ-mental role is created where none existed before. Peoplein this position can give themselves a broad overview ofthe environmental responsibilities of their role and the requirements of ISO 14001 by taking the New EnvironmentalManager course. This is a ground level course for peoplewithout prior knowledge of the environmental aspects ofbusiness.

Managers with prior experience as Quality or H&S Managers will be familiar with the complexities of ISO9001 and OHSAS 18001. In this case, an EnvironmentalManagement System Awareness course is an effectiveroute for anyone who needs to enhance an in-depthknowledge of these standards and now wishes to implementISO 14001.

Management system standards interrelate and an increasing number of environmental professionals arefinding that they need to be aware of standards such asISO 9001 and OHSAS 18001 to be able to implement theenvironmental management system to its fullest extent.Courses on integrated management systems show howthe three systems can be unified to achieve greater efficiency and better business performance.

NetworkingAndrew Burns Warren is an NQA associate, trainer andexperienced environmental professional. He sees a broadrange of people attending environmental training coursesat all stages of their career. “In the environmental sector,where things change so fast, developing your skills is essential. Professional training keeps you up to date withchanges to standards and government legislation and keyindustry developments. Everyone working in this industryshould ensure that they take their personal developmentthrough training seriously. It will help them manage theenvironmental aspects of their organisation more effectivelyand gain more responsibility.”

Andrew adds: “An important side effect of professionaltraining is the networking opportunity it brings. Peopleoften come out of workshop-based training courses havinglearnt a lot more than the course contents promised – thesharing of ideas and experience with fellow delegates andthe course leaders is invaluable. Training should beviewed as a key opportunity for networking alongside exhibitions, conferences and seminars”

IEMA backingAuditing is the common thread linking the vast range ofenvironmental careers. Everyone who is serious abouttheir career in the environment should consider developingtheir skill set in this area.

Internal EMS Auditor training will give environmentalmanagers the skills to perform internal audits of theirEMS in compliance to ISO 14001. NQA’s IEMA ApprovedFoundation Course in Environmental Auditing is an indepthtraining course in all aspects of environmental auditing.On completing the course environmental professionalswill have achieved IEMA’s standard for professional audi-tors. For someone passionate about their continuous pro-fessional development, it’s a real bonus to have thebacking of an organisation with the reputation of IEMA.

As in the case of Liz Hopkins, delegates who have completedauditing training often have to pass what they have learntto colleagues who will be performing audits for particularparts of their organisation. Parkwood Holdings is a multi-disciplinary organisation with numerous sites having different environmental impacts. Having completed a fiveday environmental auditing course, equivalent to NQA’sIEMA Approved Foundation Course in Environmental Auditing, Liz has run four 2-day training courses for colleagues so that they can perform audits at a regionallevel. She says “I felt really confident delivering the train-ing to my colleagues after having undertaken auditortraining and I think it's vital for environmental managerswith responsibility for ISO 14001 to undertake the rigorousauditor training”.

Keeping your options openJobs in the environmental sector can become compart-mentalized as they focus on a particular specialism and itcan be difficult for environmental professionals to switchbetween specialisms. Some professional training coursescan be viewed as a stepping-stone between sectors or away to keep a working knowledge of a number of differentniche areas. This can be a more viable option for manythan undertaking a sector specific MSC both in terms ofcost and time commitment.

One of the challenges of our work at NQA is to provideclear guidance to those working in the sector and this isparticularly important when changes are made to standardsor new standards are introduced. We are currently devel-oping a training course on BS-EN 16001 – the energymanagement standard launched in late 2009 – which willbe a key tool for businesses wishing to manage an increasingly expensive resource effectively.

NQA advisors are happy to discuss the best developmentroutes for you, please get in touch on [email protected].

Max Linnemann is Environmental Sector Manager atNQA.


Short courses for environmental professionals

Strengthen your CV and increase your skills base, employability and experience.Courses run throughout the year. Upcoming courses:

Marine Planning Aquatic Invasive Species GIS for Environmental Managers Introduction to Statistics in R Field Skills

As an added bonus, a number of our short courses allow you to gain academic credits – so you can also build your own tailored postgraduate qualification at the same time.

Full details can be found online: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/environmental

University of OxfordContinuing Professional Development Centreand Future Energy Group

Oxford Energy Futures

11 June 2010

www.conted.ox.ac.uk/turbineFor more lifelong-learning opportunities visit www.conted.ox.ac.uk

A conference focusing on cutting-edge energy topics given by researchers at Oxford University and with contributions from scientists and practitioners at other organisations and businesses. It is an opportunity to meet and discuss with those working at the forefront of energy research and to find out more about the science, planning, policy and business of future energy. The conference is particularly relevant to Local Authorities, NGOs, research organisations, business and industry.

The event will be opened by Professor Steve Rayner of the Said Business School.

Fee: £75 per person; free to Oxford postgraduate students who present a poster

Venue: Rewley House, Oxford

Tel.: +44 (0)1865 286953

Email: [email protected]

Register: at our website

GIS Online LearningAre you currently working full-time but want to study for apostgraduate qualification?

Our Geographical Information System(GIS) online courses can help you develop your career potential across a broad range of employment sectorsfrom business and environment, tohealth and retail planning.

Find out how to capture,analyse and manage geospatialdata for modelling, mappingand planning purposes, in achanging world.

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The recession may well be over, but the modest rate ofgrowth so far is leaving many feeling that we’re not quiteout of the woods yet. Perhaps understandably, it is causingmany businesses to be cautious in their financial planningand more risk averse in decisions on purchasing and investment.

As an energy business, we’ve wanted to understand howthis is translating into businesses’ decisions on energy,particularly at a time when the potential risks associatedwith energy are growing. Whereas 20 years ago energywas nothing more than a financial consideration (andeven then not a primary one), price volatility, the need toreduce carbon emissions, and growing legislative demandsmean energy now has wider implications.

It is perhaps little surprise therefore, that our seventhnpower Business Energy Index (nBEI7), an annual reportwhich canvasses business opinion on energy use and carbonemissions, found a marked change in attitudes towardsenergy. Half of businesses say that energy risks have be-come higher profile in their organisation over the last threeyears as the considerations around energy use multiply.

What has come as a surprise, however, is where energyranks in businesses’ risks. For major energy users, energy is now the primary risk they face in their businessranked at 7.3 out 10 in terms of its risk level. This outrankseven cash flow, health and safety, and legislative risks.

Dave Cockshott, corporate markets director at npower says it’s moreimportant than ever to have a strategy in place to manage energy risks.

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The reasons for this became clearer when we asked busi-nesses about where they perceive most risk in their energyuse. Supply costs, rated at 7.9, were considered to placethe greatest risks on operations, but legislative compliance,associated CO2 emissions, and reputational risks alsoranked highly.

Yet, despite this acknowledgement, 20% also said they donot have a strategy in place to manage these energy risks,and of those that do, most believe it can be improved.

A failure to manage risks effectively could lead to financialand reputational consequences, both as a result of poorpurchasing decisions or as a failure to manage legislativerequirements.

Take the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy EfficiencyScheme (CRC) as an example. For the 25,000 or so organ-isations the scheme applies to, they have only until 30thSeptember to prepare and submit an information disclosureon their electricity consumption. This must be an accuratereport on electricity use through half hourly meters(HHM) in 2008, which is being used as the qualificationyear. Any organisation whose consumption was 6,000MWh through one or more half hourly settled meters orAMR qualifies for the scheme in full, which means theywill need to submit more detailed information on theirtotal carbon emissions.

From April 2011, full participants will need to purchaseallowances to cover CO2 emissions for the year ahead;the higher their emissions, the greater the number of allowances required.

For all involved there are potentially significant financialand reputational implications. The financial penalties comein missing the September 30th deadline and by failing tomanage carbon emission allowance purchasing adequately.Late registrants will face a fixed fine of £5,000, plus anadditional £500 per working day per HHM for every daypast deadline, up to a maximum of 80 days. While partici-pants who mismanage allowance purchasing and reportingcould potentially face an impact on cash flow of hundredsof thousands of pounds, depending on the size of their organisation.

And this does not even consider the impact on corporatereputation of a low position in the CRC’s league table,which will rank participants on how successful they’vebeen in reducing their carbon emissions. For some sectors,such as retail which is firmly in the public eye, leaguetable position could be more important than the financialimplications of the scheme.

With the months fast running out to the registration deadline, it is these risks that we believe will lead businesses to look at solutions to manage the CRC.

A similar scenario is true of energy purchasing. Manybusinesses have taken the decision to buy energy flexiblyin recent years to take advantage of peaks and troughs in

the energy markets, but often they do not have a strategyto manage purchasing decisions.

We’ve known examples of when businesses have made apurchase concerned that market prices would continue torise, only for energy prices to drop a week later. This situ-ation might have been better managed had there been astrategy in place, based on the detailed understanding ofthe risks the business was prepared to take with bench-marks set against which to make purchasing decisions.

Given the combined considerations of purchasing andcarbon reduction, brought about by schemes like theCRC, we believe it is now essential that businesses havesuch a strategy that brings together both the supply anddemand side of energy use. In this way, decisions can bemade that benefit the business as a whole – investmentsin energy efficiency will reduce carbon emissions but willalso reduce purchasing requirements, for example.

For many businesses this may require a step change inhow energy is managed. All too often decisions on pur-chasing and carbon reduction are dealt with by differentdepartments making it difficult to make cohesive decisions.We believe it will also change how businesses work withtheir energy suppliers and are already seeing this first hand.

Many businesses are now turning to us to manage theirCRC obligations under our new ‘CRC Assist’ service, for example. The service is designed to help businesses un-derstand the CRC; assist them with the development of anenergy management strategy; and manage their partici-pation in the scheme including preparation of registrationinformation, compilation of the year end ‘footprint reports’,plus forecasting and guidance on the purchasing of emis-sions allowances.

There are very good reasons for working in this way.Quite aside from the peace of mind it provides, it couldprove to be time and cost effective, negating the need torecruit and train new staff for the task and avoiding theneed to establish a suite of processes and procedures orcompliance with CRC, thus freeing up valuable internalresources.

It could also prove to be more productive in the long termas the CRC strategy would be based not only on compli-ance, but on long term goals to deliver energy savings and carbon reductions focused on performingwell under the scheme, which can then be linked to energy purchasing decisions.

If you don’t have plans to develop a strategy like this,there are two very good reasons for talking to your energysupplier sooner rather than later. The CRC deadline isfast approaching and, after a relatively benign period,there is some movement in wholesale energy costs.

If you want to make sure you are managing the risksahead, now is the time to take action.

npower’s CRC Assist offers a comprehensive service to help manage each stage of the CRC. A team of experts is on hand to help you with:

For more details speak to your Account Manager

or call now on

npower.com/CRC

CRC Assist - helping you comply, ensuring you perform

Provision of the CRC Assist service by npower is subject to contract. See npower.com/assist for more details.

Telephone calls: We may monitor and /or record calls for security, quality or training purposes. The costs of calls to 0845 and 0800 numbers will vary so please check with your provider for exact charges.

npower is a registered trademark and the trading name of Npower Limited (registration number: 3653277), Npower Direct Limited (registration number: 3782443), Npower Northern Limited (registration number: 3432100), Npower Commercial Gas Limited (registration number: 3768856) and associated companies. Registered offi ce: Windmill Hill Business Park, Whitehill Way, Swindon, SN5 6PB.


We have, in Britain, lost much biodiversity. We fearwe are currently losing much more. However, wehave also replaced, deliberately, a little of what wehave lost. A few species have returned on their own,or illicitly. So what opportunities do we have to replace some more of the lost species, and what are the restrictions?

Amongst our losses have been our 7 largest mammals– 3 large herbivores, 3 large carnivores and ourlargest rodent. Amongst our birds, we probably lostour largest bird of prey, owl and auk, as well as apelican, crane and stork. In terms of numbers of individuals, these losses were, in some cases, relatively small. In terms of charismatic species,they were enormous.

Dr Derek Yalden

Ex-School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester.

Reintroducing


Irreplaceable lossesTwo species are gone forever:

The Great Auk, a huge flightless Razorbill, the prototypefor the southern oceans’ penguins (called in French lepingouine, its name was transferred to them), nested onflat coastal rocks around the North Atlantic. Around theBritish Isles, it nested historically on the Calf of Man, StKilda and probably Holm of Papa Westray, Orkney. Archaeological evidence shows that it also nested nearJarlshof, Shetland; Knap of Howar, Toft’s Ness, Links ofNotland and Knowe of Ramsay, Orkney; Oronsay, Risga,The Udal , Cnip and Sollas, Hebrides; and possibly othersites around Scotland, as well as the Isles of Scilly. Inother words, it was widespread at one time and, thenumbers of skeletons suggest, abundant as well. The lastknown around Britain was killed on St Kilda, in 1840; thelast in the world were a pair killed south of Iceland in 1844.

The Aurochs is a slightly different case. As a wild mammal,it is extinct; the last small herd lived in Poland’s Jaktorowa

Forest, where the last cow died in 1627. However, some9,000 years ago, a population in the Middle East, perhapsin Turkey, had been domesticated, and the domestic cattlefrom that source spread throughout Europe and Africaover the next 4,000 years or so. Thus, though the EuropeanAurochs is extinct, the genes, or most of them, of its Asianrelatives should survive in its domesticated descendants.Attempts have been made, especially by the Heck brothersat Munich and Berlin zoos in the 1920s-30s, to recreatethe Aurochs by crossing various less specialised domesticbreeds (Carmargue fighting bulls, Highland cattle, Hun-garian steppe cattle, etc.). The apparent Aurochs coloura-tion has reappeared: calves and cows are chestnut brown,with a light eel stripe, and the bulls turn very dark, almostblack, with age. However, the size and horn shape of extinct Aurochsen have not returned. Even so, the Dutchhave experimented with restoring ancient grazing patternsby releasing Heck cattle into a large nature reserve, Oostvaardersplassen, and the idea of trying somethingsimilar in Great Britain has been discussed. �

Vertebrates


Lost, and perhaps returnedOne of the large mammals we lost was the Wild Boar.Henry III had 20 from the Forest of Dean at Christmas1260, and 80 were taken from Pendle Forest to PontefractCastle in 1295. These seem to be the last records of gen-uine Wild Boar in Britain. However, in the 1970s, certainenterprising farmers took to importing Wild Boar fromEurope, to supply a specialist venison market. Some oftheir stock is genuine Wild Boar, some of it hybrids withdomestic pigs. Boars are difficult to confine, prolific whenbreeding and catholic in their diet. Almost inevitably,some have escaped, either because fences were brokenby falling trees during storms, or en route to market.Equally inevitable, free-living breeding populations havebeen established in the Weald in Sussex, in Dorset and,appropriately, in the Forest of Dean. Early reports of thesepopulations concentrated on the danger they presented topeople and their dogs, the damage they might do to farm-land and golf courses, and the impossibility of such acrowded island hosting (again!) such large mammals. Asthe novelty has worn off, acceptance of their presence hasincreased, though stalking them for their venison haslimited their numbers and their spread. Since Germansand French manage to live with many thousand Wild Boarloose in their countryside, there is no reason why theyshould not survive in Britain. Certainly they can be a hazard – to vehicles and their drivers, as are deer.

Large birds might manage to return of their own volition.Several of the smaller birds that became extinct around a century ago have done so; among them are famous examples of returns, trumpeted as conservation successes,including Osprey, Marsh Harrier, Bittern and Avocet. Mostspectacular is the return of the Crane. A single pair returned to breed in Norfolk in 1981. As they only haveone or two chicks a year, their increase has been veryslow. A considerable degree of protection, legal and discrete, helped in the early years. Now it is possible tosee 10 or 20 in a day but they are still confined to a smallarea of East Anglia. There are proposals to breed extrabirds in captivity and encourage their return to other wetland areas, including the Somerset Levels.

The White-tailed Eagle might also have returned on itsown, but failed. It was increasingly scarce over much ofEurope through the 20th Century, limiting the source ofcolonisers. After a false start or two, a serious and officialreintroduction programme brought 82 young birds fromNorway to Rhum during 1975-85, and the first eaglet wasreared in the wild in 1985. Population increase was veryslow, barely matching natural and illegal deaths, and afurther batch of young birds was imported in the 1990s.Because these eagles came from coastal Norway to theHebrides, the notion that this is a sea eagle has been reinforced. But it isn’t, necessarily, and wasn’t. In EasternEurope, it lives along wooded river valleys, and did so in


England in Saxon times, as indicated bothby place-names and archaeologicalrecords. It should become more wide-spread again. Likewise Red Kites becameextinct in England and Scotland by 1900,though a very few (< 6 pairs) survived inWales. They might have spread back fromthat nucleus but increased very slowly.Birds were reintroduced to England andScotland from Spain and Sweden. Theynow number around 100 pairs, and theWelsh population has also now increasedto that level.

Possibilities for mammalsWhile birds might be able to re-coloniseon their own, mammals would need ourhelp. Going backwards, we lost Wolvesaround 1700, Beavers around 1600, Boararound 1300 and Lynx and Bear around500 A.D.. Probably Elk and Aurochs werelost around 2000 B.C.. Boar remain wide-spread across western Europe, even theoutskirts of Paris, so it is not surprising

that they have prospered here. Beaversand Lynx have been reintroduced to manycountries, Lynx mostly to mountainousareas with good deer (prey) populations,Beavers to lowlands, as near as Brittanyand the Netherlands. Wolves have spread,naturally, from Finland to Norway, Italy toFrance, and Poland to Germany. Neitherfarming nor the forestry interests havecollapsed. Sure, there have been localproblems. Sheep cannot be left untendedon the hills in Wolf range and guard dogsare needed. Beavers sometimes causedamage to orchards, occasionally floodbuildings. If Wolves killed more Red Deerhinds in Scotland, it would improve thevalue of sporting estates by leaving themto concentrate on stag stalking. Touristsflock to Yellowstone National Park in thehope of seeing the reintroduced Wolvesthere; they would to Scotland, too. Theyalready travel to Mull to see White-tailedEagles.

[email protected]

Mobile: 07960 570777Based in the North West, EcologicalLand Management Ltd deliversconservation and wildlife protectionservices. This includes wildlifetranslocation and mitigationschemes, management of naturereserves and the control of invasiveweeds. Please contact us to discussany requirement you may have.

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Rapid Assessment of Marine Pollution (RAMP) is a costeffective, simple to use ‘toolkit’ for identifying environmentalimpacts and threats in aquatic environments, but its useis far more than purely analytical. In the developing countries where the approach has been applied, it haslaid the foundations for and encouraged sustainable environmental management and cross border cooperation.Tim Fileman and David Lowe from Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), explain the concept and some of itssuccesses…

There is increasing awareness that the environment playsan essential role in ensuring good human health. Accordingto the World Health Organisation, the major risks include“…climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, loss ofbiodiversity, changes in hydrological systems and thesupplies of freshwater, land degradation and stresses onfood-producing systems.” This may seem to be statingthe obvious, but sadly, the environment has for too longbeen ignored in considerations of our health. Interactionsbetween living things and the environment are incrediblycomplex and we are only now beginning to comprehend

the magnitude of the problems that human activities havecreated for our future wellbeing.

Currently the Earth is home to nearly 7 billion people and this is expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050(http://esa.un.org/unpp/). Approximately 50% of the population currently live within sixty kilometres of thecoast and in areas, such as Asia and India, the ocean provides about a third of consumed animal protein. Consequently, any degradation or unsustainable use ofsocially and economically important marine environmentswill have direct impacts upon human health.

In recognition of rapid population growth and increasingwater pollution, representatives of Africa's 38 maritimecountries met in July 1998 in Maputo, Mozambique, toconsider ways to "protect, manage, and value" the continent's coastal environment in the face of limited resources, poor sanitation and development needs. Inparticular, the United Nations established that 2.64 billionpeople had inadequate sewage treatment and/or disposal.This value represented 44% of the global population, but

Fishing village near Chennai, India.

Rapid assessmentof marine pollution

Tim Fileman and David Lowe from Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML)


in Africa and Asia approximately half of the populationhad no access whatsoever to wastewater treatment services. This situation is getting worse, resulting in increasing degradation of the very source of much of ourfood. It can be avoided, or at least ameliorated, by appro-priate environmental management actions. However,conventional measures are too costly and require a higherlevel of expertise than is widely available. Therefore, aneed was identified for rapid, easy to use, inexpensive andecologically relevant environmental assessment andmanagement procedures. PML has been a pioneer in determining marine ecosystem health for more than 30years, developing novel techniques that are now routinelyapplied around the world.

The RAMP concept has grown out of a desire to trainother scientists in emerging economies in the use andapplication of techniques to assess the quality of their environments. The ethos for RAMP methods is that theymust be easy to learn, cost effective, transferrable between species, robust, technically simple and relevantto a country’s needs.

“Designing and delivering RAMP across the world hasbeen very rewarding and fulfilling”, commented Tim File-man. “It’s great to see the personal and regional benefitsof RAMP on follow-up visits and to see how it evolves intoenvironmental monitoring programs. One particularly exciting aspect of RAMP is the development of new tech-niques and technologies which I think will provide greatpotential additions to the RAMP ‘toolbox’. I am lookingforward to continuing the development of RAMP and assisting developing countries in the management oftheir ecosystems.”

PML, with partners, have developed a Rapid Assessmentof Marine Pollution “toolkit” as a pragmatic, cost-effectiveapproach for detecting, monitoring and assessing impactsof human activities in aquatic ecosystems. It also providesa means of detecting threats from the environment tohuman health and well-being. RAMP comprises a set ofprocedures and tools (including rapid, simple chemicalmeasurements, bioassays, biomarkers, socio-economicand health assessment methods) that allow scientistsand environmental managers to determine ecological status, take action to protect or restore the environmentand work towards sustainable development.

The RAMP team is dedicated to capacity building andknowledge sharing in developing countries. By empoweringlocal scientists and managers, RAMP generates local andregional support for, and commitment to, sustainable environmental management for the protection of humanand environmental health.

The approach has been deployed recently in Chennai,India, and Hanoi, Vietnam (EU-Asia Pro ECO II Programme– “Sound Chemicals management for a Healthier Envi-ronment in India and Vietnam”), as well as being used inCosta Rica, Brazil, Thailand, Black Sea and Caspian Seastates. Additionally training workshops have been under-

taken under the RAMP ethos above in Bermuda, Thailand,Costa Rica, Brazil, Ukraine, Romania and the UK. Ofthese, half were funded by the European Union and theremainder by the UN. The workshop in the UK had delegates from all littoral states around the Black Seaand the workshops in Thailand and Ukraine had delegatesfrom neighbouring countries, which is to be encouragedas it helps to formulate cross-boundary regional monitor-ing programs. In the Beibu Gulf region of the South ChinaSea (known in Vietnam as the Gulf of Tonkin), RAMP hasbeen introduced where there is an intention to use italong the entire coast. RAMP is also about to be introducedto neighbouring China’s Guangxi region. There is interesthere too in the two regions working together to protectwhat is a common resource for both countries.

As already stated one of the objectives of RAMP is to provide training in methods relevant to a country’s needssuch as hydrocarbon, pesticide, metal and radiation pol-lution as well as methods indicative of a decline in animalhealth status. Local species are used during the course ofthe training programs and adapted as necessary to addressphysiological differences with the species on which themethods were originally developed. Other areas coveredby the training programs have included sampling protocolsto ensure that samples are not compromised, unbiasedsampling design, data handling, socioeconomics and biodiversity analysis.

In the first stage of engagement with a new RAMP projectwe will evaluate the national policy framework withinwhich marine monitoring might be incorporated. We willthen identify and address key politicians and decision-makersbefore engaging at a science level. A number of the peoplewe talk to might become part of a reference user group oradvisory council that tracks the science and adapts it fornational needs. With such political ownership, the chanceof the science continuing after training funding has expiredis greatly improved.

Initial policy-level discussions will also alert RAMP scien-tists to national sensitivities and priorities. Our approachwill help to reassure policy makers that they are not beingexposed to a one-size-fits-all approach to monitoring butone that is tailored to their national needs and existingplanning.

Overall, RAMP aims to promote the efficient managementof the aquatic environment by promoting the use of rapid,simple assessment methods that allow scientists and environmental managers to determine ecological status,take action to protect or restore the environment andwork towards sustainable development. RAMP contributesdirectly, significantly and cost-effectively to the identificationof ecosystems under threat and the nature of that threat.

For more information contact Tim Fileman([email protected]) or David Lowe ([email protected]) at thePlymouth Marine Laboratory (www.pml.ac.uk)


Ellsin Environmental Ltd. Inc. (Ellsin), a privately ownedCanadian Corporation, is in the business of converting wastetyres into reusable raw materials in an environmentally“clean” manner. Ellsin holds the exclusive US and Canadianrights to utilize the patented Reverse Polymerization™process developed by Environmental Waste International(EWS), a public company located in Ajax, Ontario thatowns 37.5% of Ellsin. Ellsin is currently constructing aproof of concept pilot plant designed by EWS that willprocess up to 900 scrap tyres per day, the TR900.

Scrap tyres have been a practical and environmental problem for decades. In North America, 330 million scrappassenger tyres are produced annually. Since they are notbiodegradable 40% of these tyres are usually discarded inlandfills or other non-regulated areas, which threaten theenvironment with water pollution and other health risks.Some local governments in the US and Canada have goneso far as to ban the disposal of tyres. Payments to proces-sors to take the scrap tyres (“tipping fees”) are common.Approximately 50% of scrap tyres are burned as fuel in cement kilns and paper mills, which creates other haz-ardous air pollution issues. The remaining tyres are mechanically processed in shredding operations to manu-facture non-essential items. There is no true recyclingsystem available for tyres.

Ellsin’s goal is to establish itself as the North Americanleader in the recycling and conversion of scrap tyres intoreusable raw materials in an environmentally safeprocess. The company does not believe this is being doneanywhere in the world today.

The patented EWS technology uses high efficiency microwaves in a low temperature nitrogen environment toprevent combustion. A short video of the EWS technologycan be seen on their web site www.ellsin.com. Eliminat-ing combustion in the molecular restructuring processdoes not result in any noxious oxides, dioxins or othergreen house gases being produced. Saleable raw material

products produced from the facility include carbon black,tyre oil, tyre gas and steel. The system will generate itsown electrical power thru the use of high-efficient, cleanbio-gas engines, which in larger units, will produce excess electrical energy that could be sold to the localpower grid.

Ellsin’s pilot plant will be located in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, which has been called the Alternative EnergyCapital of North America. The site is near the harbourand will allow for expansion by acquisition of adjacentland. The City is at the apex of the Great Lakes, permittingbarge delivery of tyres from the entyre region and accessto shipping of the end products produced.

Ellsin has obtained all Ontario Ministry of the Environmentand City permits to operate the TR900 plant and hasbegun construction of the 10,000 square foot building thatwill house the equipment. The building is fully financedand will be owned by Ellsin.

The TR900 will serve as a proof-of-concept pilot plantsystem. It will showcase the efficiency and revenue gen-erating capability of this advanced technology for the nextstage of investment required. The process will provide asustainable environmental solution that not only contributesto the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but isa green solution to the environmental problem of tyre disposal. This project also plays a role in the reduction ofour dependence on depleting oil reserves by generatingclean energy.

Ellsin will sell facilities across the US and Canada thatutilises the licensed patented process to convert scraptyres into usable by-products. The 20-year project plan includes the construction of up to 40 TR6000 facilities andthe potential establishment of several carbon black re-processing facilities and tyre oil refining centers. Ellsinwill initially build tyre facilities for third parties, althoughit may ultimately operate some for its own account.

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Ellsin Environmental Ltd.


Headland Archaeology (UK and Ireland) has been awardeda £50K contract to provide transboundary marine archae-ology consultancy services for a 260km underwater electricpower cable linking Ireland with the UK.

The large scale energy project is being developed by EirGridPlc, the commercially run semi state company whichmanages and operates the Irish electricity transmissionsystem, will be the first electricity link between Irelandand Wales. It will create a two-way power transmissionbetween the nations by the end of 2012 supplying enoughenergy to power 300,000 homes.

The EirGrid East West Interconnector will improve the security of energy supplies, promote competition in theelectricity sector and encourage the growth of renewableenergy.

The UK and Irish subsidiaries of Headland Archaeologywere appointed to the project following a procurementprocess and have already begun work on the project conducting a cultural heritage assessment within Irishwaters. The firm will continue to provide specialist marinearchaeological services to EirGrid right through to instal-lation in 2012, which will include Environmental ImpactAssessments (EIS), site survey supervision, procurementadvice and stakeholder liaison.

Headland Archaeology is the perfect fit for this type ofproject due to its wealth of experience and knowledge inthe marine, infrastructure and renewable sectors as wellas its ability to work in two countries and in two currencies.

Dr Dan Atkinson, Headland Archaeology’s Maritime

Manager, who will manage the project said: “This jointproject between our UK and Irish subsidiaries is a majorcoup for the company and will enable EirGrid to benefitfrom the specialist marine archaeology expertise held bythe teams located in both countries. It also highlights thecapacity of our business to undertake large transboundaryinfrastructure projects.

“This is a growing sector for us and the first of its kind forHeadland. However, with European developments in therenewable and energy sector steadily on the increase, thistype of project will become more frequent as the require-ment for improved transboundary grid connections emerge.

“This is a very specialist field and Headland is one of veryfew companies with the required expertise, capacity andresources to carry out consultancy for a project of thisscale.”

Formed in 1996 in a former lemonade factory in Edinburgh,Headland Archaeology has grown to become one of thebiggest archaeological companies in the UK and Ireland.

Flagship projects in Scotland include Clyde Windfarm,South Lanarkshire and the Camster Windfarm, Caithness,the Western Isles Interconnector, the M80 and M74 roads’projects, Edinburgh Trams and Forth crossing at Kincardine.Whilst in the Republic of Ireland projects include majorroad schemes such as Shannon LNG and Metro North inDublin and the Kish and Bray Banks Offshore Windfarm.

For further information visitwww.headlandarchaeology.com

Archaeologists to pave wayfor UK-Ireland underwaterenergy link

Case Study 2


Building owners and designers have an increasing number of factors to take into account when considering which materials tospecify for use in window fabrication withintheir buildings. These factors include Durabilityand Life expectancy, Air and Weather tightness,Stability throughout changing seasons, Energyefficiency, Future Maintenance cycles and bothInitial and Whole Life costs. In addition sus-tainability and the impact on the environmentof materials chosen is increasingly at the forefront of the decision making process.

These decisions become even more critical inexposed and coastal locations and this was evident to David Shaw when he purchased theIconic 178 year old Belle Toute Lighthouseperched on the cliffs above the sea at BeachyHead, Eastbourne, Sussex.

Belle Toute has a long and varied history. Originally build in 1832 to replace a temporarywooden structure, the location of the lighthousewas carefully planned so that the light was visible for 20 miles out to sea.

In 1902 it was decommissioned and a newlighthouse built at the base of the cliffs. Itchanged hands a number of times from thispoint until 1948 when Eastbourne BoroughCouncil took it over due to its historical signifi-cance. The council leased the building to anumber of tenants over the ensuing years,many of whom added their ‘mark’ to the build-ing, until 1986, when it was bought by the BBCwho used it in the making a number of films.

By the late 90’s the building was becomingdangerously close to the cliff edge as a resultof continuing erosion and an impressive engi-neering challenge was completed in 1999 tomove the lighthouse 17 metres back from theedge of the cliff.

The building was put up for sale once againand in 2008 local businessman David Shawpurchased the building with the intention ofopening it to the public as a Guest House andtourist centre.

A number of challenges now faced Mr. Shaw in his quest to refurbish the building and an important one was the need to replace the various windows in the building.

With the exception of the metal windowsaround the top of the tower, enclosing the areawhere the light was once housed, the remainingexisting windows were of timber constructionin a mixture of styles and timber species andwere generally in very poor condition, letting inboth wind and rain. They were also inefficientin terms of energy conservation being in themain, single glazed.

The Belle TouteLighthouse

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Following on from discussions with the Local Authorityplanning and conservation department, Mr Shaw madethe decision to replace all the windows and set about researching suitable replacements. Bearing in mind theage and location of the building, the local conservation officer expressed a preference that the replacement win-dows should be constructed in timber if at all possibleand whilst Mr Shaw in principal was happy to go alongwith this preference, he was keen to ensure that if possiblethe manufacturer was UK based and ideally local to Sussex.He also insisted that the following main criteria were adhered to by this final choice of window manufacturer….

• The windows should be of proven design, air and water-tight

• As energy efficient as possible

• Require limited ongoing maintenance

• Be cost effective both in terms of initial and whole lifecost

• Be manufactured from timber species which are asdurable as possible but also from certified sustainablesources

• Have secure and reliable hinge and locking systems

After discussing the project with a number of companies

Mr. Shaw settled on Sussex joinery and timber windowmanufacturer, Westgate Joinery using the revolutionarytimber ‘species’ Accoya® for his windows.

Mr. Shaw considers Accoya® to be an ideal choice for theBelle Toute Lighthouse windows. He commented that inaddition to the benefits afforded by Accoya® the replace-ment windows now installed have the added benefit ofhigh quality multipoint locking systems together with an‘A’ rating under the BFRC’s Energy Rating scheme,demonstrating the energy saving credentials of the product.

Accoya® uses plantation grown sustainable timber whichundergoes a chemical modification process known asacetylation using non-toxic acetic acid to change the cellstructure throughout the timber. Invisible to the nakedeye, the change creates the most moisture resistant anddurable timber available for joinery and window production.It comes with a minimum service life of 60 years accordingto the Building Research Establishment (BRE), whichcombined with extended maintenance cycles gives signifi-cantly lower whole life cost. It also offers class one dura-bility together with exceptional coatings performance andstability.


A Canadian company is leading the way for the world withits’ patented Elementa Process®. Over $6 million hasbeen invested over the past eight years in the developmentand optimization of the innovative non-incineration energy-from-waste conversion technology and proprietaryprocesses. There is no other complete system like it inthe world and recently, delegations from over ten countrieshave been flocking to the pilot plant in Sault Ste. Marie,Ontario, Canada to view the unique Elementa Process andplace orders.

The Elementa Process solves landfill problems, createsclean renewable base-load distributed energy and signifi-cantly reduces green house gases.

Since 2007, Elementa Group Inc. has operated a 1,000tonne pilot plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canadawhich served to put the technology together, as well as todevelop and optimize the intellectual property andprocesses. The Elementa Process has received independentthird party verification by SNC Lavalin, one of the largestproject and engineering firms in the world.

The Elementa Process uses municipal solid waste (MSW)as the feedstock and through steam reformation, thechemical breakdown of materials under high temperaturesin a oxygen deprived combustion-free environment, cleanrenewable energy is produced. The MSW volume is reducedby 98% with a 2% inert residual (to be used as an aggregatein cement). The reformation process converts organic(carbonaceous) materials into a synthesis gas that is fedinto a turbine/engine to generate electrical power or canbe used as a bio-fuel. Elementa’s commercially viable,single continuous process of core conversion technologyis based on the chemistry of steam reforming augmentedby the company’s patents, licenses and intellectual property.The process significantly outperforms emission guidelines,

including some of the toughest in the world of the European Union, California and Ontario, Canada.

The City of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada in a land-mark first of its kind in Canada 20-year agreement effective in 2011, has committed to supply and divert all ofits curbside municipal solid waste to Elementa’s new full-scale plant. This will be a seamless transition as munici-pal trucks will continue to collect refuse as usual, butinstead of dumping the contents at the landfill, they willdeliver the contents to Elementa’s $33.6 million facilityand pay Elementa a $60/tonne tipping fee. Elementa willutilize its patented clean energy non-incineration conver-sion technology and proprietary processess to reform35,000 tonnes annually of MSW into clean renewable energy. This facility will generate an estimated sixmegawatts of electrical power for the grid, enough elec-tricity to power approximately 6,000 homes. It will alsocontribute to cleaner air by reducing green house gasesby over 24,000 tonnes annually, which is the equivalent totaking 4,800 cars off the road. Eliminating landfill activitiesalso contributes to cleaner land and water by eliminatingleaching and related problems.

The landfill site in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada hasan estimated 8-10 years left at which estimates indicatethe costs to replace the landfill at well over $100 million.The Elementa solution will eliminate the need for a newlandfill site. Furthermore, it offers the ultimate opportunity,to mine garbage, which would actually reduce and elimi-nate waste at existing landfill sites.

The Elementa solution is timely as societies around theworld have three pressing needs - the need for an envi-ronmentally friendly alternative to land fill sites, the needfor base-load distributed sources of clean renewable energy and the need to reduce greenhouse gases.

Canadian Company Leading The World With PatentedNon-Incineration EFW Process

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Elementa Group Inc. company founder, President andCEO Jayson Zwierschke stated, “We are excited to be ableto commercialize the Elementa Process. We have Phd’s,scientists and engineers from Hong Kong, Japan, Russiaand France including expertise from the University ofToronto and the University of Waterloo collaborating on anonging basis. My team and I have been working on thisproject for many years and it’s the right product, at theright time for the right reasons. Elementa is excited to beable to affect positive change on the world.”

Kevin Johnson, Consul General, United States Consulate,recently visited Elementa’s pilot plant in Sault Ste. Marie.Michael Wozny, Vice President, Business Development forElementa Group Inc., said, “The Consul General was veryinterested in the Elementa Process. He was extremely impressed and rather surprised that this unique worldclass technology and process was developed and optimizedin a small Canadian city. The fact is, given the right circumstances, technology and intellectual property canbe developed anywhere. After his tour, the Consul Generalcommented that colleagues in Washington need to beaware of the Elementa Process. ”

There is tremendous growing global interest in the Elementa Process. The Sault Ste. Marie Economic Devel-opment Corporation and Elementa Group Inc. has hosteddelegations from over ten countries in the past 18 months.This includes St. Lucia, United States including New Yorkand Chicago, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Slovakia, Dubai, Panama, Australia, private sectorcompanies, senior government and elected officials.

After signing the first of its kind in Canada EFW agree-ment with Elementa, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, CanadaMayor John Rowswell stated, “Elementa has taken a responsible approach in verifying the technology and put-ting together a business model that is cost effective andresults oriented. The city has been a great supporter allthe way through the development process and this agree-ment is a demonstration of our continued commitment.We have hosted delegations from over 10 countries whoare interested in the Elementa process. This is clearly another example of why Sault Ste. Marie is the AlternativeEnergy Capital of North America.”

David Orazietti, Member of Provincial Parliament for SaultSte. Marie, Ontario, Canada added, “Our government con-tinues to support the cutting-edge work performed by El-ementa because we recognize the need to find innovativesolutions to deal with our garbage while increasing energysupply and spurring economic growth. This initiative willfurther Sault Ste. Marie’s reputation as a national greenenergy leader by bringing the community closer to becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to have all of itscurbside waste diverted from the municipal landfill.“

The customer business model for Elementa Group Inc. in-cludes sales and arrangements that will include munici-palities and jurisdictions around the world that operatelandfills, private sector industries and manufacturers, as

well as utilities & power generators.

“Elementa is willing to engage in a variety of commercial-ization schemes in any country which would include anyvariation of the Design Build Operate model, joint ventures,technology sales, franchises and other viable businessarrangement that makes sense,” said Wozny.

After successful establishment of the full-sized plant, Elementa Group Inc. further plans to establish manufac-turing facilities of proprietary plant equipment in SaultSte. Marie, Ontario, Canada. Elementa Group Inc. has hadnegotiations with major international manufacturers whoare interested in joint ventures to subsequently set upmanufacturing facilities for key capital components of theElementa system such as kilns, scrubbers, shredders,gas cleaning equipment, fabrication and manufacturing ofproprietary equipment. Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canadais at the heart of the Great Lakes and has a deep waterport. Scalable plant equipment would be packaged andexported via the St. Lawrence Seaway, and other modes,to countries throughout the world. This would be worthbillions of dollars of exports for Canada.

Elementa Group Inc. continues to be repeatedly featuredin prominent international media. The world is anxiouslyawaiting the proliferation of this innovative Canadiantechnology and process to address key global problemsassociated with landfills and greenhouse gases while producing clean renewable base-load energy.


Environet was recently featured on the BBC The OneShow, talking about the nightmare scenarios faced byowners of land infested with the dreaded JapaneseKnotweed. We spoke to Nic Seal of Environet to find outmore about Xtract™, their ground breaking eco methodfor rapid and complete eradication of knotweed.

Alarms should be ringing loudly if you own or occupy landinfested with Japanese Knotweed. Notwithstanding thepossible damage caused to property by this highly invasiveweed, now all leading banks refuse to offer mortgages onland infested with Knotweed. This makes any future saleof your property very difficult, undoubtedly affecting thevalue of your property investment.

Japanese Knotweed is not constrained by property bound-aries so spreads into adjoining land causing disputes between neighbours, sometimes ending in costly litigation.

The plant is supported by an extensive underground rhizome system of roots and stems. The system extendsdeep into the ground, typically 2m, sometimes deeper. Inorder to eradicate Japanese Knotweed, you either need tokill or remove the entyre rhizome system, and there liesthe difficulty. If any viable rhizome remains, new shootswill return and gradually spread to re-infest further. It’seasy to make the above ground part of the plant look deadbut what is important is what lurks below the surface.Don’t be fooled into thinking the Knotweed problem hassimply disappeared just because you can’t see any growth.Knotweed rhizome can remain dormant in the ground formany years, ready to strike when you least expect it.

It is difficult to kill all rhizome using herbicides, so if youare serious about achieving eradication rather than simplecontrol, treatment is best left to specialists, who may beable to eradicate Knotweed in one growing season if con-ditions are right, otherwise it could take two years or more.

Delaying development whilst one waits for eradicationusing herbicides is clearly not an option any developerwould happily choose, and now with the advent of Xtract™an attractive alternative exists, that is considerably lesscostly to the wallet and environment than “dig & dump” orother physical methods.

The area of infestation is mapped out, and excavatedusing a 360 tracked excavator under expert supervision,usually to a depth of 2m or more. The excavated infestedsoils are loaded into the Xtract™ machine, a mobile pieceof plant designed by Environet, specifically for removingJapanese Knotweed rhizome from soil.

Processed soils, now with all viable Knotweed rhizome removed, are stockpiled by two sets of conveyors readyfor re-use on site. The collected rhizome is bagged up andremoved from site, for off site energy recovery or disposal.

Having now operated Xtract™ for 3 years, the company isso confident of its results that it offers a market leading20 year guarantee on this method as standard.

The advantages that this method provides are numerous.

For the developer, immediate eradication can be achievedat a highly competitive price, without delays to the con-struction programme and with peace of mind backed byguarantee.

For the eco-minded, Knotweed is cleared with negligibleenvironmental impact, no harmful herbicides are required,and no infested soils are consigned as waste to landfill.

Being an on-site remediation method, all costs are eligiblefor tax relief under the Land Remediation Tax Reliefscheme introduced by the Government to encourage theclean up of contaminated land using sustainable methods.

Xtract™ is not suited to every Knotweed situation, for example where time permits eradication by herbicidetreatment, but is a superb alternative to any other physicalremoval or containment method, such as “Dig & Dump”and “On site burial”.

To watch the BBC One Show feature see Useful Links atwww.environet-uk.co.uk/japanese-knotweed.php

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Xtract™ - the eco alternative for the immediate eradication of Japanese Knotweed

As the company that has been leading the field in the development of advanced Vertical Farming systems, ValcentProducts (eu) Ltd, of Launceston, Cornwall, has recentlylaunched an important new addition to its range: AlphaCrop™. During its successful development of themuch publicised VertiCrop™ high density vertical growingsystem – which can be viewed in a full scale 150m2 workinginstallation at Paignton Zoo in Devon – the company wasconstantly being asked if the benefits of vertical farmingcould be experienced by the smaller scale grower, or eventhe amateur gardener wishing to boost crop production.The answer was yes, and the result is the A-framed AlphaCrop™.

AlphaCrop™’s triangular design ensures that all theplants on the shelving storage system receive optimumlight as the shelves revolve up and down. The AlphaCrop™is fully scalable, and can be built to any height, and anylength from 2m to 6m or more. It can be scaled up fromone module to any number of modules, all operating offthe same motor and the same watering station – it istherefore suitable for the business that plans to grow incrementally, as the cost of each additional module decreases proportionately, because the drive system andmuch of the structure needed is already in place. Thegrowing trays can be adapted to the customer’s own requirements, whether for a ‘floating raft’ system, NFT(Nutrient Film Technique), or a flood and drain system.Non-hydroponic conventional media such as compost,peat, and coir can also be used.

The plants receive abundant light - as they rotate down-wards 50% of them are in natural light, and on the up-ward rotation the other 50% are in natural light. So in onefull rotation the plants receive 100% exposure to naturallight. It is possible to install artificial lighting in the coreof the frame, which will again reach all plants over a com-plete cycle. The irrigation and feeding is applied at theapex of the frame, and excess water drains away at thebottom of the rotation, so that the increased weight on thedownward movement and the decreased weight on theupward movement create a ‘waterwheel’ effect whichminimizes wear on the motor and drive system, and in-creases the efficiency and longevity of the system.

AlphaCrop™ was developed by Grahame Dunling, a leadingvertical farming specialist with a lifetime’s experience incommercial growing. Dunling explains; ‘I have designedAlphaCrop™ from the perspective of the grower, and ver-satility is at the heart of the design. It is possible to groworganically and with compost in AlphaCrop™, and this isideal for baby root crops, carrots, leeks, or even small potatoes. Likewise, if a large scale commercial growingoperation is required, the AlphaCrop™ design can be custom made to fill a large production area. The system is ideal for crops, like strawberries, which need constantcropping, as the plant shelves can be positioned at theright height, and harvested without the need to bend orstretch. Because of its ease of scalability, AlphaCrop™can be adapted for the needs of both the small and thelarger scale grower. The units can be delivered flatpacked, for compact storage and to enable the systems tobe easily moved from one location to another.’

Like VertiCrop™, AlphaCrop™ offers a very high output forthe footprint it occupies, and a strong return on investmentwith many types of crops. Designed with the small tomedium scale producers in mind, it is suitable for growinga wide range of crops, including strawberries, leaf crops,herbs, microherbs and baby vegetables of all kinds.

Advantages of Vertical Farming

The environmental and economic benefits of AlphaCrop™are essentially the same as those of its larger sibling,VertiCrop™: no need for pesticides, water usage reducedto 5% of open field growing, optimal growing environmentwith faster crop cycles, and high quality, nutritious output.In addition much less land is needed for a given output,reducing capital costs and also energy usage, whichmeans reduced GHG’s in food production. But most of all,AlphaCrop™ presents an economically viable way to supplyfresh, nutritious produce where it is consumed, with mini-mal food miles – whether in a city centre, a harsh climatewhere normal growing is not possible, or even co-locatedwithin an organization, be it hotel, hospital, school, campusor military base where the consumers are already inplace. Further information and contact details are availableon the company’s website www.valcent.eu

Revolutionary Technology for smaller scale Vertical Farming

Case Study 6


BaleHaus at Bath is a cutting edge project to constructa highly sustainable domestic property at the Universityof Bath. The BaleHaus at Bath is an upside down house.The living room and kitchen are on the first floor andoffer stunning views across the University campus.

BaleHaus is a new design methodology in housing pro-viding an entirely renewable way to construct homesmade from natural materials that are beautiful, affordableand sustainable.

The BaleHaus provides many solutions to help peopleeffectively reduce their CO2 emissions without compro-mising how they choose to live their lives.

The reason for building the BaleHaus at Bath is to encourage a convenient means to help people live moresustainably by developing ways to:

Live within our environmental means - especially inrelation to our carbon footprint;

Maintain a healthy and comfortable quality of life;

Build strong communities.

BaleHaus addresses these three challenges in a numberof ways and offers a straightforward and practical wayto reduce our footprint on the earth.

BaleHaus reduces heating bills by up to 85%

BaleHaus reduces CO2 emissions by up to 60%

BaleHaus is a less than Zero Carbon housing solution

BaleHaus meets Code 4 for Sustainable Homes withoutthe need for additional renewables.

BaleHaus at Bath has achieved an air tightness of0.86m3/hr.m2.

BaleHaus utilises the revolutionary ModCell prefabricatedstraw bale construction system. ModCell uses replen-ishable, virtually unprocessed and where possible locallysourced materials including engineered timber, strawand lime to create walls that breathe, have a less thanZero Carbon Footprint (each 3m x 3.2m panel sequesters1400kg of atmospheric CO2 ) and has a thermal performance (u-Value of 0.19) over two times higherthan the current Building Regulations require.

BaleHaus at Bath uses a minimum of highly processed

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materials, thus reducing energy and pollution. Also thereis minimal use of extra finishing materials such as paint,plaster, wallpaper etc. Structural systems are exposed –allowing us to see beautiful materials that are doing morethan one ‘job’ for us.

The use of straw on construction sites has, to date, beenlimited to dedicated individuals and smaller groups whohave the desire and determination to see the projectthrough and the challenges of protecting it from the elements as well as seasonal limitations. ModCell has, bythe use of prefabrication, removed the main reasons forthe construction industry not to use straw bales in buildings.All ModCell panels are delivered to site as a sealed module.This removes any site objections while also delivering anefficient and sustainable building material.

The ModCell frames, made from precision engineeredsustainable FSC and PEFC wood, are fabricated as closeas possible to the project site using Modern Methods ofConstruction (MMC) in a ‘Flying Factory’, specifically created for each project. They are then in-filled with locallysourced straw as the insulation material. The BaleHaus atBath’s ‘Flying Factory’ was located within 5 miles of thesite, minimising the carbon footprint. Local people wereemployed to assemble the panels. The assembled, straw

filled and lime rendered panels, were then delivered theshort distance to site for simple and rapid installation; theBaleHaus at Bath was structurally complete within 4 days.

Sustainable materials like straw, timber and lime do mostof the work i.e. are structural, act as insulation and therender supplies the internal and external finishes.

Large elements of building such as the roof and floorplates are manufactured from engineered timber. The en-gineered timber is a solid, durable, low carbon buildingmaterial, which sequesters carbon from the atmosphereand can, be easily reused or recycled at the end of thebuilding’s life. The roof uses a black single layer roofingmembrane. The membrane is made from 75% recycledbitumen material.

The project has undergone extensive testing at the University of Bath, part funded by the DTi, BERR, CarbonConnections and the Technology Strategy Board. The loadbearing panels not only support the weight of the buildingbut also provide racking strength to stabilise the structure.The racking tests have given us the confidence to developthe system into a load bearing system, which we are introducing into the mainstream commercial and housingmarket.


Recent tests have confirmed it is more than strongenough to withstand hurricane force winds so turns thechildren’s fairytale of the three pigs on its head!

In the children’s story, the pigs hide in a house of straw,only to be blown down by the big bad wolf. However theresearch at Bath proves that straw is a sturdy sustainablebuilding material after all.

The research team, led by Professor Pete Walker, Directorof the University’s BRE* Centre for Innovative ConstructionMaterials, has been monitoring the house since October2009 for thermal performance and humidity levels andhas now tested the structure of the house for resistingwinds up to 120mph.

The wind load was simulated using hydraulic jacks, whichpushed horizontally against the walls with a total forceexceeding four tonnes, equivalent to the dynamic force ofa hurricane. During the tests, the walls moved no morethan four millimetres under peak loads, well within designrequirements and as predicted.

The researchers will use this data to develop a theoreticalcomputer model of the house to simulate how a threestorey, or even higher, BaleHaus building would withstandsuch winds.

The research team, including Dan Maskell and DrKatharine Beadle, had previously conducted similar testsfor racking strength on the individual wall panels. This is

however the first time a whole house made of straw balepanels has been tested in this way.

Professor Pete Walker said:

“Straw is a very environmentally-friendly building materialbecause it is renewable and uses a co-product of farming.

The crop used to make the straw locks in carbon dioxideas it grows and can be sourced from local farms, savingon transport and minimising the carbon footprint of thebuilding.

The recent test result is excellent as it has both confirmedthe robustness of BaleHaus and validated the computermodel, so avoiding the need for further tests and providingbasis the for safe and efficient structural design.

We hope the data we’re collecting on the BaleHaus willhelp strengthen the case for the mainstream building industry switching to using more sustainable buildingmaterials like straw.”

The results of the research will be beneficial to many:

The farming industry will benefit from large-scalevalue-added use of the common agricultural by-product,straw.

Homeowners will also benefit from high performancelow carbon healthy homes, and more broadly the gen-eral public, through the delivery of healthier buildingsand reduced carbon emissions and lower pollution.

We relished this important opportunity to create one ofthe first prefabricated houses in Europe to be made entirely from eco-friendly materials - a typology that directly affected the aesthetics and form of the house. Wehave combined heavy weight materials with lots of thermalmass ensuring a constant, pleasing environment.

This house uses the most high-tech computer designedtimber frame technologies that ensure precision and ahuge saving in materials. All roofs, ceilings and internalwalls utilise FSC or PEFC solid timber.

The BaleHaus at Bath will have a lasting impact on howresidential properties can be built together with thesustainable materials used within its construction. Thelocal community has gained in a number areas:

By bringing local employment,

Injecting cash back into the community

Using locally sourced materials.

We have proved to the construction industry that there aresustainable, low carbon, prefabricated materials availablethat offer a choice in how to build today and in the future.

The project also starts to address the zero carbon-housingtarget set by the government and is an excellent demon-stration of modern methods of construction using tradi-tional building materials. The design and construction ofthe building incorporated a plethora of innovative products,many of which will become future mainstream buildingcomponents.



I

have previously reported on the high-tech solution tocleaning and screening compost, to remove satisfactorilythe plastics and other contamination which is one of themajor problems faced by the growing number of com-posting companies in the UK today.

Now, this innovative but practical solution by Dutch Com-pany REDOX RECYCLING TECHNOLOGY BV has resultedin new applications for this type of equipment. In additionto the cleaning of the many different green waste processes,cleaning of residues from thermal treatments, such asAutoclaves and Digestion Towers, can now be successfullycarried out. Compost-like-output and fibrous residue hasbeen a focus for quality issues recently and REDOX havethe solution with their equipment.

Input, be it pre-shredded and maturing green waste takenfrom the windrow area or aforementioned residues, arefed into the start of the line, a high capacity deposit hopper.This can be loaded up with about 20 minutes running timeso as not to tie up the front loader. Triple shaft agitationdevices break up the clumps of material to ensure aneven and homogenous dosing onto the line.

A magbelt takes any ferrous before the double stretch-deckscreening at 5mm and12mm. The flexible screen matsstretch and flex alternately thus working sticky materialand keeping the screen mesh open. The 5-12 fractionpasses over a highly controllable Airstream Device to takeany small plastic foils. 5-12mm clean product is combinedwith the 0-5mm and discharged to a final finished productbunker.

The +12mm material is then presented to a REDOX WIND-

SHIFTER that again uses a concentrated and controllableairstream combined with a rotating drum to separatestones, glass and heavy contamination from the organics.The separation drum takes the long pieces of wood outand over with the organics. Negative pressure is main-tained in the discharge hood by recirculating the air backto the fan.

The Windshifter parameters can be adjusted by variablespeed air flow, angle of air flow, speed of separationdrum, height and distance of drum to the vibrating table.By controlling these items the dynamics of the Windshiftercan be changed to suit different separation techniques.

Energy is of paramount importance, these machines canuse only 25% of the power requirement of equivalent suc-tion and cyclone systems. Any airbourne dust is collectedby concentrated reverse jet filters and discharged into abigbag.

The organic fraction passes over a levelling deck, toevenly spread the material to fall as a curtain, where astate of the art triple-laser optical sorter is installed.Each laser has twenty channels each that can be tuned todifferent parameters enabling the optical sorter to identifydifferent colours and eject them by compressed air jets.Bottle tops, plastics and even mouldy pieces are removed.The cleaned oversize organics are then returned to theshredding and maturing process and will be returnedback through the plant to obtain a clean final fine product.

The whole process can be run unmanned and in a controlledatmosphere, thus it is well on the way to combating theproblems encountered by airbourne bio-aerosols that arefacing legislation.

REDOX Windshifters are proven and well establishedwithin the recycling industries with many installations inconstruction, commercial, municipal and compost facili-ties. The flexibility of uses is ever growing with now metalfragmentiser residues and WTE applications. In productionat the moment is a plant that diverts residues en route tothe landfill and processes it into a fuel (SRF).

For these new applications, REDOX have test units thatUK facilities are now trialling on site with the first full-sizeinstallation due this year.

Maybe recyclate quality is a language that the Dutch canshare with us!

Talk to them at Futuresource 2010, Stand number G38.

Simon Ingleby, Redox-Alfatek UK

Good clean fun withour green neighbours

Case Study 8


No business can afford to ignore the green agenda. Climatechange is the most serious environmental challenge weface in the 21st century. It touches every aspect of ourprofessional and personal lives.

The good news is that business can really benefit fromgreen thinking. Traditionally, this has focused on makingsupply chains and factories more efficient, but these ben-efits are small compared with creating better products fornew ways of living. And brands can help by educating andinfluencing consumers across the globe on more sustain-able patterns of consumption.

We should not be surprised that many experts believethose companies that make sustainability part of theircore strategy and tackle it systematically will be rewardedwith higher rates of growth and lower costs. Equally, thosewho choose to wait until forced by regulation or view thisagenda solely in terms of reputation management andCSR will do too little too late and might not even survive.

Unilever has committed to double the size of its businesswithout increasing its environmental impact. In fact, weintend to go further and actually reduce our imprint. Thisis not just a hugely challenging target but one that is inspiring to everyone who works in the company. We aredetermined to do this across our entyre value chains fromthe sourcing of raw materials, their conversion into prod-ucts, transportation & storage and in consumer use anddisposal.

Our laundry business is a good example of ensuring thatall stages are covered.

In manufacturing, businesses can readily take direct controlto reduce their carbon footprint, by optimising packagingand decreasing the amount of electricity, water and fuelneeded to make and transport products. We have focusedfor many years on taking actions that make a difference atscale and in so doing have reduced our greenhouse gasemissions from our own factories by 43% since 1995.

But we can do more. In developed markets over 80% of theenvironmental impact occurs after the product is purchasedand taken home. It is the energy required to the heat waterand to power washing machines and tumble dryers thatcontributes most to the environmental footprint fromwashing clothes in the UK. So there is clearly a benefit from

washing laundry with eco appliances, at lower temperaturesand on shorter cycles to reduce water and save energy.

The laundry products that are being used to wash theclothes are also important. Indeed, if we can address bothconsumer use and products together then we have thebest chance of success and will achieve something thatadds up to a significant global affect.

This is the crux of the Cleaner Planet Plan. Every houraround 14 million people around the world use a Unileverproduct to wash their clothes, equal to over 125 billionwashes each year. By developing products with superiorconcentrated formulations and using these to engage withconsumers we can help people keep their clothes cleanwith much less water, packaging and fewer greenhousegases.

Concentrated detergent products are a great start becausethey offer advantages at every stage of the cycle. They require less packaging, reduced transport, shelving effi-ciency in stores, are easier to carry home and to use.This all adds up to a win for the consumer, a win for theretailer and a win for the planet. If everyone doing a washuses one of our compact washing powders or concentratedliquids instead of a traditional powder then we estimatethat it would save the same amount of CO2 as removingover a million cars globally from our roads.

Once people buy the right products the next thing to do isto help them to do their laundry in the most efficient fash-ion. This is where brands and communication come in.How to get the best from the quick wash cycle? When towash at lower temperatures? Should you use the cap tomeasure the correct dose or just chuck in ‘the rightamount’? Why use the tumble dryer when it is warm andyou can dry clothes outside?

Small individual actions like this can make a huge difference when they become a common habit.

We all share responsibility for acting to reduce the impactof climate change businesses, individuals and governments.And consumers and business are beginning to appreciatejust how much they can achieve and the benefits that canbe secured from acting first. The excuse of waiting forothers just doesn’t wash.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

By Dr. Keith Rutherford – Unilever’s Global ProgramDirector for Sustainability & Operational Excellence

The case for green business

The eventEnvirenergy North West 2010 is the region’s fl agship energy and environmental management conference presenting innovative technologies and best practice.

Managed by Envirolink Northwest this year will build on the success of last year’s event which welcomed over 300 delegates and over fi fty exhibitors.

The audience The exhibition and conference is a must for those responsible for energy, carbon reduction, sustainable procurement, environmental compliance, climate change, corporate social responsibility, waste management, water management, building design and sustainability.

Book your FREE delegate place Places and stands are limited. Please book early to avoid disappointment.

24 June 2010 9.00 am—3.30pm

Manchester Suite, Manchester United, OldTrafford Stadium, Sir Matt Busby Way Manchester M16 0RA

For information [email protected] telephone 01925 813200 www.envirenergynorthwest.co.uk

EnvirenergyNorth West201024 June 2010Old TraffordManchester

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