LUSAKA (Reuters) - Ten people were killed and another 10 injured when a Zambian dump for copper mining waste collapsed on Wednesday, police said.

Informal “artisanal” miners have taken to re-excavating copper and other metals from the Black Mountain waste site in the town of Kitwe in Zambia’s Copperbelt Province.

In February the government’s mining investment arm gave a 10 percent stake in Black Mountain to such small-scale miners.

“The incident happened this morning and at least 10 people have been confirmed dead,” Copperbelt police chief Charity Katanga said by phone from Kitwe, 400 km (250 miles) north of the capital Lusaka.

The main opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) said the deaths could have been avoided.

“This was a disaster waiting to happen. A lot of people have expressed concern about poor safety at the site but the minister of mines insisted it was safe,” said UPND spokesman Charles Kakoma.

The government said it would investigate the incident.

“It’s premature and unhelpful at this stage to apportion blame. The president (Edgar Lungu) has sent the minister of mines to get to the ground and establish what happened and ensure enhanced safety measures,” presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said.

Zambia is Africa’s second largest copper producer. Poverty fuels small-scale and illegal mining and enforcement of safety standards is poor.

Global mining companies including First Quantum Minerals, Vedanta, Barrick Gold Corp and Glencore operate in the country.</s>China's decision to stop accepting plastic waste from other countries could cause the polluting material to flood the planet, scientists have warned.

More than 111 million tonnes of plastic will need a home by 2030 following the Chinese import ban on worldwide plastic waste.

Wealthy countries must find a way to slow the accumulation of one of the most ubiquitous materials on the planet, researchers said.

Plastic was first introduced in the 1950s and since then 8.3 billion tonnes (9.1 billion tons) has been produced.

Many wealthy countries such as the UK, the United States, Japan and Germany said they were 'recycling' their plastic but they were actually exporting it to China.

China has taken more than 105 million tonnes (116 million tons) of the material since 1992, according to the research led by Amy Brooks, a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Georgia.

This is the equivalent weight of more than 300 Empire State Buildings.

However, on December 31 2017 China passed the 'National Sword' policy and permanently banned the import of non-industrial plastic waste as of January 2018.

The new policy is forcing countries to rethink how they deal with plastic waste.

They need to be more selective about what they choose to recycle, and more fastidious about reusing plastics, said Ms Brooks.

'While recycling and the circular economy have been touted as potential solutions, upward of half of the plastic waste intended for recycling has been exported to hundreds of countries around the world', researchers wrote in the paper, published in Science Advances.

Researchers said 'little thought has been given to the impact of this growing use on solid waste management systems, which have had to react to the influx of new and variable materials entering the solid waste stream.'

Until that happens, Ms Brooks said more plastic waste is likely to get incinerated or sent to landfills.

'This is a wake-up call', she said.

'Historically, we've been depending on China to take in this recycled waste and now they are saying no.

'That waste has to be managed, and we have to manage it properly', she said.

Using United Nations data, researchers found that China has dwarfed all other plastics importers, accounting for about 45 per cent of the world's plastic waste since 1992.

The ban is part of a larger crackdown on foreign refuse, which is viewed as a threat to health and environment, according to the study.

High income countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas account for more than 85 percent of all global plastic waste exports. Taken collectively, the European Union is the top exporter.

As of 2016, the countries that exported the most waste to China were the US, the UK, Mexico, Japan and Germany.

Germany exports the most plastic waste to China with 69 per cent of the total produced. The US comes in second place with 56 per cent of its waste going to China.

The UK exports 51 per cent of its plastic to Germany so it's likely that a lot of this pollution ends up in China.

In 2016, China tried to implement a 'Green Fence' policy to restrict what plastic it would take. However, the policy only lasted one year.

Some countries that have seen an increase in plastic waste imports since China's recent ban, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, are already looking to enforce bans of their own because they are quickly becoming overburdened, Ms Brooks said.

The study illustrates how much more difficult plastic is to recycle compared to other materials such as glass and aluminium, said Sherri Mason, who was not involved in the study and is the chair of the geology and environmental sciences department at the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Many consumers attempt to recycle plastic products that can't ultimately be recycled, Ms Mason said.

One solution could be to simplify the variety of plastics used to make products.

'We have to confront this material and our use of it, because so much of it is single use disposable plastic and this is a material that doesn't go away,' Ms Mason said.

'It doesn't return to the planet the way other materials do.'

The National Recycling Coalition said in a statement in mid-May that it must 'fundamentally shift how we speak to the public' and 'how we collect and process' recyclables.

'We need to look at new uses for these materials,' said Marjorie Griek, the coalition's executive director.

'And how do you get manufacturers to design a product that is more easily recyclable.'

According to Ms Brooks plastic waste was once a fairly profitable business for China, because they could use or resell the recycled plastic waste.

'But a lot of the plastic China received in recent years was poor quality, and it became difficult to turn a profit', she said.

'China is also producing more plastic waste domestically, so it doesn't have to rely on other nations for waste'.

For exporters, cheap processing fees in China meant shipping waste overseas was less expensive than transporting the materials domestically via truck or rail.

'It's hard to predict what will happen to the plastic waste that was once destined for Chinese processing facilities,' said Dr Jambeck.

'Some of it could be diverted to other countries, but most of them lack the infrastructure to manage their own waste let alone the waste produced by the rest of the world.'

The import of plastic waste to China contributed an additional 10 to 13 per cent of plastic waste on top of what the country is already having a difficult time managing.</s>Return to Nature Compost provides pickup and delivery service across region

BOZEMAN – W.J. Woods was raised to respect the environment, and had an epiphany while living in Chicago in 2011 that would eventually redefine composting in southwest Montana.

Composting is the practice of reusing food waste as fertilizer, and once the seed of his idea was planted, Woods began brainstorming how to create the perfect compost service.

Originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Woods studied at St. Lawrence University in New York and now works during the winters for the Yellowstone Club ski patrol. He fell in love with the beauty and splendor of Montana, and decided to tailor his idea to meet the needs of his fellow residents and prevent waste in the region.

In November 2017, Woods set his idea in motion and by February of this year his business, Return to Nature Compost, was up and running. The young business, designed to collect compostable food waste from customers so they don’t have to take care of it themselves, is already experiencing success with clients across Belgrade, Big Sky and Bozeman. Woods’ customer-convenient process allows him to serve a wide clientele from all over the region.

“If there’s a need for it, I’ll go to Big Sky, Livingston, Ennis, anywhere,” he said, touting his ability to cater to the needs of residents who are interested in reducing food waste that would otherwise be put in landfills around the state. Woods uses his days off from ski patrolling in the winter, and working as a fly-fishing guide in the summer, as pick-up days.

He explained that his process is quite simple, giving his clients a bucket to collect their food scraps and other compostable waste to collect until pick-up time. “You don’t have to worry about it and you feel better about what you’re doing,” Woods said, adding that gardens profit from the waste, which is repurposed as fertilizer once it has undergone the decomposition process.

Woods monitors and tends to one large compost pile created from his clients’ waste. He keeps the pile in a facility near the Bozeman airport. After his weekly collections, he tends to the pile by turning it over and unsettling it, which oxygenates the compost to encourage decomposition. Woods hopes to expand and experiment with different methods such as bacterial and fungal composting. He wants to see what type of compost pile is most effective for the Montana climate.

“It’s a trial and error sort of thing,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple process and it starts just when you toss your extra food and stuff outside, and then the compost pile gets hot as everything is decomposing. A big thing is time and temperature.”

Return to Nature Compost provides clients with a free 5 gallon bucket of compost per month for use in home gardens, indoor plants, or any other soil that needs nutrients. “Compost . . . has a variety of different kinds of nutrients,” Woods explained. “It will help plants grow to their highest potential,” which, for customers, means creating healthier plants with a free natural resource they’d otherwise discard.</s>China’s decision to stop accepting plastic waste from other countries is causing plastic to pile up around the globe, scientists have said.

China’s decision to stop accepting plastic waste from other countries is causing plastic to pile up around the globe, scientists have said.

China block on plastic waste could cause worldwide pile-up, study says

The scientists sought to quantify the impact of the Chinese import ban on the worldwide trade in plastic waste, and found that other nations might need to find a home for more than 122 million tons (110 million metric tons) of plastic by 2030. The ban went into effect on December 31 2017, and the stockpiling trend figures to worsen, the scientists said.

Plastic and other recyclable material being collected from the shores of the Arabian Sea (Rafiq Maqbool/AP) Wealthy countries such as the United States, Japan and Germany have long sent their plastic recyclables to China, and the country does not want to be the world’s dumping ground for plastic anymore. The study found China has taken more than 116 million tons (105 million metric tons) of the material since 1992, the equivalent of the weight of more than 300 Empire State Buildings.

They need to be more selective about what they choose to recycle, and more fastidious about reusing plastics, said Amy Brooks, first author on the study and a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Georgia. In the meantime, Ms Brooks said, more plastic waste is likely to get incinerated or sent to landfills.

“That waste has to be managed, and we have to manage it properly.” The study was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Using United Nations data, it found that China has dwarfed all other plastics importers, accounting for about 45% of the world’s plastic waste since 1992. The ban is part of a larger crackdown on foreign refuse, which is viewed as a threat to health and environment.

Some countries that have seen an increase in plastic waste imports since China’s ban, such as Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, are already looking to enforce bans of their own because they are quickly becoming overburdened, Ms Brooks said. The study illustrates that plastic, which has a wide array of uses and formulations, is more difficult to recycle than other materials, such as glass and aluminium, said Sherri Mason, who was not involved in the study and is the chair of the geology and environmental sciences department at the State University of New York at Fredonia. Many consumers attempt to recycle plastic products that can’t ultimately be recycled, Ms Mason said.

One solution could be to simplify the variety of plastics used to make products, she said. “We have to confront this material and our use of it, because so much of it is single use disposable plastic and this is a material that doesn’t go away,” Ms Mason said. “It doesn’t return to the planet the way other materials do.”

The plastics import ban has attracted the attention of the US recycling industry. The National Recycling Coalition said in a statement in mid-May that it must “fundamentally shift how we speak to the public” and “how we collect and process” recyclables. “We need to look at new uses for these materials,” said Marjorie Griek, the coalition’s executive director.</s>LWMC uses IT system to dispose of hospital waste

LAHORE: Contagious and dangerous waste generated by four big public hospitals is being lifted and disposed of through a recently introduced and properly monitored hospital waste lifting and disposal mechanism in the provincial capital by Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC).

This was revealed by Managing Director, LWMC, Nusrat Gill while talking to The News at his office here on Wednesday. He said the new system was introduced to save the citizens from the hazardous effects of unchecked movement and unchecked recycling of highly risky and contagious hospital waste.

Hospital waste includes waste from surgery and autopsies on patients with infectious diseases. Other wastes include disposable needles, syringes, saws, blades, broken glasses, nails or any other item that could cause a cut, tissues, organs, body parts, human flesh, foetuses, blood, body fluids, drugs, chemicals, solids, liquids and gaseous waste contaminated with radioactive substances used in diagnosis and treatment of different diseases. It is pertinent to mention here that following loopholes in the present system, dangerous hospital waste is being leaked out and sold in open market, which is recycled and used for manufacturing of different plastic items, especially daily use kitchen items including plates, straws, dishes, glasses, spoons and. etc. This is posing a very serious health threat to the citizens. Nusrat Gill said the new system is IT-based storage, collection, transportation, treatment and disposal system of the infectious waste from healthcare units of primary, secondary & tertiary healthcare units and private healthcare units. He said repair, operation and maintenance of the incinerator installed at Children’s Hospital, Lahore has been completed while installation of three autoclaves having treatment capacity of five tons/day each will be constructed soon. He said construction of central storage facilities named as Yellow Rooms for infectious waste storage in four hospitals such as Services, General, Children and Lady Willingdon have been completed and waste of these hospitals is being incinerated on daily basis.

Talking about LWMC’s other ongoing projects, he said the company is vigorously working on Waste to Energy project under which 40 MW electricity will be produced. He said a comprehensive financial reliability plan is also under consideration, which will be presented to the next government and if implemented, LWMC will be able to collect Rs 5 billion per annum. “This will overall improve the company’s performance and the citizens will witness better cleanliness conditions across the city,” Nusrat Gill concluded.</s>In six months from October to March, an extra 639 tonnes of food waste was recycled in Buckinghamshire compared to the same period the previous year.

On average, that’s an extra 2.9kgs of food waste from every household in the county.

The waste campaign is run by the Waste Partnership in Buckinghamshire, which is made up of the four district councils which collect household waste and Buckinghamshire County Council which disposes of it.

By using advertising, social media, and direct contact with residents, it has aimed to get people who already recycle food waste to do it more, and to get other residents to start for the first time.

Councillor Bill Chapple OBE, Buckinghamshire County Coucil Cabinet Member for Planning and Environment and chairman of the WPB said: ‘This is another good step forward in our efforts to be more waste efficient and residents can give themselves a pat on the back, though there is always room to do more. The ideal is not to waste food, but some waste is unavoidable and by recycling we can still get energy from that food – electrical energy’.

From the beginning of June 2018, residents of Aylesbury Vale have been able to use plastic bags to line their food waste caddies, which will hopefully continue to increase the amounts of food waste recycling.

A ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ section on the Recycle for Buckinghamshire website (www.recycle4bucks.co.uk) gives tips on making the most of leftovers and reducing waste. By recycling as much as possible through the weekly kerbside collections carried out by the districts, the waste can be turned into energy by a process of anaerobic digestion.

In Bucks, around 16,000 tonnes of food waste are collected from homes each year, but there is still more to be done to reduce food waste and to recycle unavoidable waste.</s>A waste removal tradesman dumped 2,000 tons of rubbish in Devon then set fire to it.

Edward Donovan, of Churchill Drive, Crediton, has now been prosecuted for a range of offences after he turned part of an elderly land owners’ farm at Spreyton into an illegal waste site.

It was here he dumped waste he collected from commercial businesses across central and east Devon as EDS (Ed Donovan Services).

Donovan pleaded guilty to charges under the Environmental Protection Act at Exeter Magistrates Court, which included running a waste site on land owned by a couple in their 70s without a permit, causing pollution and setting fire to waste. He was given a jail sentence of 18 weeks, suspended for two years, and banned from the waste trade for five years.

He was also ordered to pay Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service £1,232 - the amount it cost the service to attend a large waste fire he set at the location last year. Donovan also has to pay £4,252 costs to the Environment Agency.

Adrian Evans, of the Environment Agency, said: "This is one of the worst incidents of illegal waste management I have come across for some time.

"The defendant showed a complete disregard for the environment, health and safety and for the owners of the land and their neighbours.

"As well as furniture, plastics, plasterboard and other vast quantities of waste which were strewn across a large area, we found materials containing asbestos."

The land owners were unaware of Donovan’s activity, who had been allowed to use the site from May 2017 in lieu of payment for dismantling and removing three caravans. When they found out, they were horrified and their son told Donovan to tidy up the site in November 2017. Instead, the defendant set waste alight.

Adrian Evans, of the Environment Agency, said: "This case serves as an important reminder to businesses and the public to be vigilant about who they allow to remove their waste.

"Waste producers should always insist on seeing evidence that waste being removed will be taken to suitably licensed or exempt facilities to be properly disposed of or recycled."

The Environment Agency has some simple steps for all householders and businesses to think about when giving your waste items to someone else to dispose of, whether you have paid them or not:

* Check they are a registered waste carrier. Ideally they should have a copy of their registration documents on them, ask to see these. You can check their licence number at environment.data.gov.uk/public-register , or call 03708 506506 and we can check for you.

* Get a written receipt/transfer note showing their contact details, a description of your waste and details of where they are taking it

* Note down the make, colour and registration number of the vehicle that’s taking your waste away.

* If their quote seems too good to be true, it probably is. Get another quote for comparison.

Taking these steps will help us all work together to deter waste criminals and reduce illegal fly-tipping and dumping that blights communities and costs thousands of pounds to clear and make safe.</s>Environment Agency officers are once again out in force to crack down on illegal waste crime around London City Airport.

Recently the Environment Agency supported a multi-agency day with partners including the Met police and DVSA - in a bid to reduce and disrupt waste crimes, metal/cable theft, tax evasion and prevent dangerous vehicles from being on the road.

During the day of action, vehicles were stopped by officers from the partner agencies to identify offences and non-compliance.

On one occasion, a vehicle carrying a suspected stolen cable was stopped. The driver was interviewed under caution by the Police with an Environment Officer on hand to question him about duty of care offences and non- compliance. 

 Environment officers also checked whether waste carriers were providing waste transfer notes to the sites where they collected waste from.

We want to make it very clear to people that everyone has a duty of care to ensure their waste is managed and disposed of correctly by the people they give it to. If you use illegal waste carriers to take your rubbish you risk being fined up to £5000. When someone offers to take your waste, you need to check that they are a registered waste carrier with us and they must provide you with a waste transfer note that tells you where they are taking the waste to. Police and DVSA used their powers to prohibit a number of vehicles from being used on the road due to the dangerous defects they identified.

DVSA is committed to protecting you from unsafe drivers and vehicles. There’s no excuse for driving with mechanical defects or with an overweight or unstable load. Those on London’s roads who break the rules are putting themselves and others at risk. Working alongside our colleagues in the Environment Agency we’ll crack down on rogue drivers and operators, making London’s roads safer for all. Waste being transported with no authorisations is likely to end-up at unregulated sites. Such sites store waste in vast quantities and for long periods of time posing significant risks to health and the environment. Risks can include fire which has the potential to contaminate water and land as well as air pollution from smoke. Illegal waste sites are often the cause of odour complaints too.

People who manage waste illegally cost the taxpayer millions every year in clean-up costs and make considerable sums of undeclared income. They also undercut legitimate business, and pose a direct threat to sustainable growth in the waste management sector. Our enforcement days make sure that the Right Waste goes to the right place ‎to stop unpermitted businesses undermining legitimate businesses and help create a level playing field.</s>It’s no secret that the Bitcoin boom has rapidly evolved to transform the way we imagine global currency in a digital world. As cryptocurrency continues becoming a normalized alternative to cash, coins and credit cards — more merchants are accepting this digital money as a viable payment method.

Bitcoin transactions are made directly between users, without the need for physical currency. Additionally, Bitcoin can be exchanged for other forms of money, products or services. These transactions are verified by a network of nodes and recorded in a publicly distributed ledger, or Blockchain, that functions to authenticate bitcoins as legitimate currency. Bitcoin mining refers to bitcoins that are created as a reward, in which users verify and record transactions in the Blockchain. Users who mine successfully receive payments per transaction in the form of new bitcoins.

Founded by Marco Streng and a smart team of early Bitcoin investors, Genesis Mining currently stands as a global leader in cryptocurrency cloud mining, attracting over one million customers and employing hundreds of full-time staffers around the world. The company built their first large-scale Bitcoin mining facility in 2014, followed up in 2016 with the construction of the world’s largest Ethereum mining facility. In March of 2016, Genesis Mining also launched the Logos Fund catering to top-tier venture capitalists, which has raised over $100 million in assets.

Aiming to accelerate the development of the Blockchain sector, Genesis Mining partnered with Foire Group to go public and launch HIVE Blockchain in 2017. Establishing the largest listed blockchain infrastructure company, HIVE operates miners that power various types of cryptocurrency, providing the backbone for Blockchain use cases. The company has raised $115 million in funding to date.

I spoke with HIVE Blockchain CEO Harry Pokrandt about the vision behind his company, the evolution of Blockchain mining, and how cryptocurrency is defining the future.

What is the specific void or opportunity you saw that inspired the partnership and launch of HIVE?

Harry Pokrandt: When you look at the cryptocurrency industry, there’s a lot of excitement. But, a lot of this buzz simply comes from the price gains. Bitcoin, for example, grew over 12,000% in 2017 and Ethereum grew over 7,000%. The entire market cap of all cryptocurrencies is now nearly $270 billion. This is impressive considering that it didn’t even exist 10 years ago. But, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find there is far more to be excited about than just short-term price increases. At the core of what makes cryptocurrencies possible is a technology known as Blockchain. Without Blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies simply couldn’t exist. Today, people are realizing that Blockchain technology has use cases far outside of just currency. Currency is simply one use case, as email is simply one use case for the internet. Blockchain has the power to decentralize nearly every industry in the world and that's what’s creating all the buzz. Despite all of the buzz and excitement, the industry is still in its infancy. Cryptocurrencies can be confusing to buy, hold, and use. There are also very few opportunities to invest directly into Blockchain technology infrastructure. This leaves a lot of investors stuck on the sidelines and missing out on one of the most disruptive technologies we’ve seen in decades. Seeing this need and realizing there was an opportunity to make investing into Blockchain infrastructure more accessible to investors, we created HIVE Blockchain in the fall of last year. Today, HIVE is a blockchain infrastructure company that is publicly traded on the TSX Venture Exchange , and we bridge the gap from the cryptocurrency world to the traditional capital markets.

Describe your business model and what makes HIVE an innovative or disruptive force in the space?

Harry Pokrandt: What makes Blockchain technology possible is a process known as mining. Mining is essentially a distributed network of computers spread out across the world that work together to maintain integrity and trust within the network. Instead of your bank confirming how much money is in your account, how much you’ve sent out, and how much you’ve received -- a decentralized network of computers does the confirmations and verifications. In return, the computers are compensated in cryptocurrency. At HIVE, we own several cryptocurrency mining farms, which are large data centers filled with thousands of computers all working to confirm the transactions taking place for various cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and zCash. We have an exclusive partnership with Genesis Mining, who is the largest cloud mining provider in the world. Genesis Mining has developed proprietary mining software, machines, and systems, providing a major competitive advantage. By combining the technological expertise of Genesis Mining and the HIVE team’s understanding of the capital markets, we offer unique way for investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency markets by investing on the core blockchain infrastructure that powers them. As our mining computers work to generate cryptocurrency, the majority of what’s generated is held as part of our long-term investment strategy. This gives investors exposure to the operating margins of mining, along with exposure to our ever-growing portfolio of cryptocurrencies.

Describe the current landscape of Blockchain mining and in what ways has the industry grown this point?

Harry Pokrandt: Marco Streng, the CEO and co-founder of Genesis Mining, didn’t start mining in a warehouse—he actually started in his college dorm room back in 2013. At the time, dorm rooms, basements, and spare bedrooms were where a lot of cryptocurrency mining took place. You would order a mining rig (a computer dedicated to mining), set it up, and you were officially a cryptocurrency miner. Today, that’s changed, and the industry has gone from dorm rooms to an industrial scale. Millions of dollars in cryptocurrency are rewarded each day to the computers powering the network, making mining a multi-billion dollar industry. This has increased the technological barriers and created an arms race, as mining companies compete for technology and location. Scale is now extremely important, and the companies with the most access to capital and low-cost energy sources will emerge as the dominate industry players.

It's been reported that Blockchain mining consumes very large amounts of energy -- How does HIVE address these environmental concerns?

Harry Pokrandt: There are certainly a lot of reports highlighting energy consumption. But, we believe it’s extremely important to understand that not all mining is created equal. China, for example, is the largest country for cryptocurrency mining. However, they are also the largest consumer of coal-powered energy in the world. We believe there needs to be a distinct line drawn between mining companies operating their facilities on clean energy and those who are not. At HIVE, we are proudly powered by 100% clean energy at both of our locations. Our Iceland facilities are powered entirely by geothermal energy and our Swedish facilities are powered entirely by hydropower. We also just recently completed an acquisition of Kolos, which owns 64 hectares of property in Norway. Kolos is perfectly positioned for rapid expansion and has near term access to 30 MW of clean energy.

How do you see the industry evolving in the next 3-5 years and what role do you see HIVE playing in leading this shift?

Harry Pokrandt: Over the next few years, we’ll see Blockchain technology evolve far outside of just currency and financial services. It will disrupt and decentralized nearly every industry that exists and truly will change the world. This new decentralized world is being referring to as the ‘web 3.0’, and it's something we’re very excited about here at HIVE. Our vision is to truly be the backbone of this new web 3.0 decentralized world by building, operating, and acquiring the critical infrastructure that will be required to power it.</s>
• Joint call comes from heads of global and UK food waste recycling associations
• EU Circular Economy Package to come into force from 4th July 2018
• Associations to hold dedicated workshops on food waste collections at global show

Local authorities and municipalities across the European Union (EU), including in the UK, need to ‘get ready’ to introduce separate food waste collections, according to the heads of the global and UK food waste recycling associations.

The EU has this week published in its Official Journal its Circular Economy Package, which includes new targets of 65% recycling of municipal waste by 2035 and separate biowaste collections by December 2023. The package will be binding on EU Member States from 4th July 2018, after which they will have two years to transcribe it into their own national laws.

Responding to the news, David Newman, President of the World Biogas Association (WBA), said:

“It’s great to see that the new targets in the EU’s Circular Economy Package, particularly those for municipal waste and separate biowaste (food waste) collections, will enter into European law in just over a fortnight’s time. There are huge environmental, economic, and human-health benefits to separately collecting inedible food waste and recycling it into valuable resources using biogas technologies – our latest report suggests that doing this on a global scale would have the same impact in terms of CO2 emissions reduction as taking all cars in the EU off the road.

“Local authorities and municipalities across Europe now need to get ready to bring in food waste collections ahead of the legal deadline of December 2023.”

Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of the UK Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association (ADBA), said:

“We fully expect the UK to implement these targets as an existing member of the EU. ADBA has campaigned long and hard for separate food waste collections to be brought in across England to emulate the successful examples set by Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in separating and recycling inedible food waste through AD, so this is a huge moment for the circular economy in the UK.

“December 2023 is just over five years away, so local authorities in England need to start factoring the requirement for separate food waste collections into their plans and use contract renewals as an opportunity to introduce collections at the lowest possible cost and with maximum effectiveness.”

Inedible food waste can be recycled through AD into biogas (which can be used to generate renewable heat and electricity and as a clean transport fuel) and digestate, which can be applied directly to land as a nutrient-rich biofertiliser.

In May, WBA launched its landmark report, Global Food Waste Management: An Implementation Guide For Cities, written in partnership with the C40 Cities Food, Water & Waste Programme. The report offers guidance and case studies for global cities on food waste collection and recycling through AD.

WBA will be holding the UK launch of the report at UK AD & World Biogas Expo 2018, the world’s largest tradeshow dedicated solely to AD and biogas, on 11th-12th July at the NEC in Birmingham, UK. The expo is being jointly organised by ADBA and WBA and will feature workshops and panel sessions on food waste collections as well as a dedicated lunch for local authorities.
A pile of mining waste collapses in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, killing ten people and injuring ten more.