News continues to emerge on the scale of illegal dumping of solid waste across the country. The latest BBC investigation notes that the Environment Agency (EA) shut down 700 such sites last year, but over 500 remain active, with 10s of 1000s of tonnes deposited in some cases. Colleagues in the EA know all too well the factors that prevent them making a clean sweep of illegal operators and rapidly progressing the clean-up of sites.
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and related waste streams are always challenging due to their heterogeneity. Once mixed, separation is complex and this often dictates the choice of treatment, making thermal systems the easy answer. There is a need for better technical solutions, tailored to production of different waste feedstock types: a classic example of why biotechnology needs to work hand in hand with mechanical and process engineering.
But there is also a much greater need to rethink our behaviour and systems, leading to requirements for economic and social change. The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) has a strong focus on addressing such wider societal issues. For an example for how deeply embedded this is at all levels, see here for a piece by CIWM Early Careers ambassador Arjayan Raveenthiran.
Could environmental biotechnology do more on mixed solid waste? There have been significant advances in several areas over the lifetime of this Network: one aim of our current EBNet Members Survey is to identify these – see here for more details. But a continuing theme on our posts and discussions has been the relative lack of progress and innovation in bioprocessing of solid wastes.
Many of EBNet’s activities will continue after the end of our formal UKI funding: see here for outline plans. One key area it would be good to strengthen is our collaboration with experts in all disciplines from across the waste management sector.