Farm and General Services Weblog

A survey commissioned by the Composting Association and WRAP has revealed that two million tonnes of new compost treatment capacity will become operational over the next five years.

The results for 2005/06 showed that 3.4 million tonnes of source segregated waste was composted. In total, 85% of the waste composted was municipal, with just under half coming from household kerbside collections.

Jeremy Jacobs, acting chief of The Composting Association, commented: "Although only a small proportion of biowastes composted were foods and animal by-products, survey respondents estimated that two million tonnes of new treatment capacity will become operational over the next five years."

One of the world’s leading animal health companies has confirmed this week that it will be possible to develop a vaccine for the serotype 8 variant of Bluetongue, identified in cattle and sheep over recent months in Northern Europe and Great Britain.

However, concerns are arising over costs, especially as it is still unknown if governments will pay the manufacturers up front or expect farmers to pay their veterinary suppliers directly.

Earlier this week DEFRA published new packaging waste recovery and recycling targets for 2008 - 2010, increasing the overall target to 72%.

In 2008 alone, these amended targets will prevent an estimated 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the atmosphere, helping in the fight against climate change.

The new overall targets of 72% in 2008, 73% in 2009 and 74% in 2010 will ensure that we meet the 2008 EU Directive target of recycling 60% of our packaging waste.

The first study conducted by the European Environment Agency, into investigating the impact of Europe’s waste on climate change has unearthed promising figures, and their findings also show that better management of municipal waste could greatly reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The EEA has predicted that household waste volumes will increase by 25% between 2005 - 2020 and that this in itself provides a real challenge for the industry. However, they hold a strong belief that as recycling and incineration with energy recovery are increasingly used, net greenhouse gases from European municipal waste will decrease dramatically by more than 80% in 2020.