Renew On Line (UK) 57

Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 157 Sept-Oct 2005

10. New BREW to cut waste

A new £284m initiative to help businesses manage resources more efficiently and cut waste has been launched by DEFRA- BREW, the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste. This programme recycles revenue generated through increases in Landfill Tax (which was increased to £18/tonne in April and will rise in stages to £35/tonne) to fund a range of free services and targeted support for businesses, and specifically targets waste minimisation, the diversion of waste from landfill and improvements to resource efficiency. The DETR note that British manufacturing would save £2-3bn each year, equivalent to 7% of profits, by adopting best practice waste minimisation techniques, and that, since its inception, Envirowise has already helped UK industry save over £1bn. BREW will initially run for three years, with the 2005/6 allocation being £43m, that for 2006/7 £95m and that for 2007/8 £146m. Subsequently more funding may follow. 

The programme aims to support:

Research and development: to help businesses take ideas on resource efficiency and waste out of the lab and into the market via the DTI Technology Programme.

Market development: WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) will be developing new markets for difficult business wastes and provide advice and support for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) involved in recycling. A feasibility study on collection schemes for recyclable materials from SMEs is planned.

Strategic development: plan better with improved data on waste trends through Defra’s ‘data on waste’ strategy.

Product design: businesses can better inform their design strategies via early warning of policy direction and priorities, and can influence policy thinking, by engaging with Defra’s Market Transformation Programme, and they can ‘design out’ waste & inefficiency at the product design stage with free advice from Envirowise.

Operations: reviewing management systems and operations to cut pollution, reduce waste and boost profits, with free site visits and advice from Envirowise and targeted support from the Carbon Trust.

Market solutions to waste: the commercial use of one company’s by-product as another’s feedstock with the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme, another free service for business.

Ensurance of compliance: ensuring that when business do need to dispose of waste they do so in compliance with legislation, while cracking down on those who don’t with new programmes being led by the Environment Agency that aim to create a more level playing field in legitimate waste management for companies to operate in.

DETR Minister Elliot Morley said: “Reducing waste has always been a profit opportunity; in today’s consumer, economic, ecological and regulatory environment it is becoming a necessity”.

* BREW covers the use of Landfill Tax in England. There are separate arrangements  in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales

More at www.envirowise.gov.uk  and www.wrap.org.uk