Frequently Asked Questions
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Who is involved?
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What have we done?
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What are we doing now?
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Why are we doing it?
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When will this take place?
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Where is the facility likely to be?
1. Who is involved?
Gateshead, Sunderland City and South Tyneside councils are working together as the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites every year.
By working together as a partnership, it will cost significantly less than if we approached this as individual authorities. Together we can provide a better solution that will be of value for money for our residents.
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2. What have we done?
We have developed a Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy| (JMWMS ), which sets out the vision for sustainable waste management across the partnership area over the next 20 years.
The strategy was developed after a major public consultation in summer 2007, where we contacted 30,000 people, collected 1,000 questionnaires and held 30 partnership meetings.
The strategy focuses on the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling our waste. It looks at how we need to continue to do this so that we can minimise the amount of waste that is sent to landfill, and meet our recycling and composting targets.
The people of Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside know we need to change our approach to waste, they've said they welcome new ideas, they like the idea of getting value from waste, and they want us to be more ambitious with our aims.
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3. What are we doing now?
We have submitted an Outline Business Case| (OBC ) to Defra, to apply for PFI credits from the Waste Infrastructure Delivery Programme (WIDP ), for financial support to fund the development of waste management facilities for the waste that we cannot recycle - an estimated 185,000 tonnes.
Defra funding is just one of the options available to us. Defra asks all funding applicants to identify methods of dealing with their waste and forecast how much they may cost but that could well change before contracts are awarded.
The OBC identifies two technologies; a Mechanical Biological Treatment with Aerobic Digestion, and Energy from Waste with Combined Heat and Power. Initial assessments looking at environmental impact, cost, performance and deliverability showed that these two technologies scored best.
However, this does not mean that either of those submitted will be the final decision. The initial plans could change completely once they are considered by the companies that will deliver the solution.
And there isn't necessarily one solution. We might use a combination of waste management facilities – or emerging technology might mean we use something else altogether.
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4. Why are we doing it?
We can no longer send our waste to landfill. It's that simple.
Climate change means we have to stop putting waste in the groundas landfill produces methane, the greenhouse gas with the highest environmental impact. Not only is landfill damaging to the environment, it is expensive and it is a loss of a valuable resource.
We have 370,000 tones of rubbish to dispose of across the partnership area – enough to fill Wembley Stadium!
Ninety per cent of this is household waste and ten per cent is commercial. We currently landfill 74 per cent of our waste and we need to get that down to 25 per cent or less by 2020.
Waste is everyone's problem. We need to continue to encourage everyone to reduce, reuse and recycle. However, even if we hit our recycling targets of 50 per cent by 2020, that still leaves an estimated 185,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste left to dispose of.
We've made huge strides in waste management over the last six years, but we need to do more:
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In 2002-3 we recycled less than five per cent of household waste, now it's 26 per cent;
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In 2002-3 we had no kerbside recycling, now 250,000 households have it, nearly 100 per cent of the area and we're expanding recycling to collect even more;
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We currently recycle or compost 26 per cent of all household waste;
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Our targets are to increase this to 30 per cent by 2010, 45 per cent by 2015 and 50 per cent by 2020.
We are now looking at alternative ways of managing our waste so that we can reduce the amount sent to landfill and meet our recycling targets.
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5. When will this take place?
A decision has not yet been taken about which technology will be used to deal with the waste that isn't recycled and will not be made until 2009. Once this decision is taken the company that wins the contract will seek planning permission for the site that it will be built on.
We will consult with the residents of Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside as part of this planning process. If planning permission is granted, the facility will be built between 2010 and 2012, and start to process waste in 2012/13.
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6. Where is the facility likely to be?
We don't know yet. But we do know that it will be within the partnership area, because we want to deal with our own waste locally. When a site is identified, it will have go through the full planning process, meet strict planning criteria and will involve a public consultation so that people can have their say.
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