Waste Management Strategy

The Waste Management Strategy was approved by the Council in December 2002 with a view to reducing the requirement for landfill to less than 15% of its original weight in the context of the Council’s Climate Change Strategy incorporating the following:

A Zero Waste Strategy of ‘an active programme of education and information to prevent the creation of waste;

Complimentary action to minimise the levels of waste with a view to stemming the annual increase;

Recycling the non organic materials where environmentally advantageous and where viable markets exist;

Recycling the organic material through anaerobic digestion for use as compost;

Reducing the volume of residual waste through gasification and promoting the re-use of the resultant material in the construction industry;

Recovering energy where possible through combined heat and power thereby using it in the most environmentally advantageous way;

A ‘first stage’ public consultation exercise to be undertaken in respect of the Zero Waste Strategy.

In determining the Strategy NGO’s (including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, National Society for Clean Air, Forum for the Future, Green Alliance, etc), political parties (including the four main political parties, The Green Party and European Union), local regional and government regional offices (including Surrey County Council, Woking Local Agenda 21 and the Greater London Authority), the media (including The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Washington Post, etc), think tanks (including The Institute of Fiscal Studies, etc) and commercial organisations/trade associations( including Thames Waste Management, Department of Health, Environmental Services Association, etc) were consulted.

A number of issues, including the application of fuel cell technology, arising from the consultation exercise have been incorporated into the Strategy.

One of the first phases of the Strategy will be to implement a twin alternate weekly collection pilot scheme in six areas of the Borough, commencing in June 2003.