New ESA Chairperson outlines his priorities for the Association
Environmental Services Association
The Environmental Services Association (ESA), the voice for the UK’s resource and waste management industry, today announced Phil Piddington, Managing Director of Viridor, as its incoming chairperson.
The announcement was made at the Annual Lunch for ESA Members and key industry stakeholders.
In his speech, Mr Piddington outlined the Association’s priorities:
- stronger producer responsibility which encourages better product and packaging design, and that properly funds the collection, separation and processing of materials
- clear measures to encourage the use of increasing proportions of recycled content
- tackling waste crime
During his speech, Mr. Piddington thanked his predecessor Dr. Stewart Davies for the achievements of his term as Chairperson and highlighted the need for ESA to continue to work closely with the Government and regulators and take advantage of the opportunity of the new Government Resources and Waste Strategy to drive up recycling performance and resource productivity.
“We need stronger producer responsibility which encourages better product and packaging design, and which properly funds the collection, separation and processing of materials.
“To achieve real resource efficiency, we must ensure there are viable end markets but for this, we need, and hope to welcome, clear measures to encourage the use of increased proportions of recycled content. This could be achieved by using variable charges under the new producer responsibility scheme, or through the Treasury’s new plastics tax if rates are high enough. But, if these measures aren’t enough to encourage retailers and manufacturers to change their behaviour and use recycled content, then the Government should go further and make it mandatory.”
Mr Piddington said the ESA would also be prioritising the need to work with Government on developing effective measures to stop criminals entering the waste sector and welcomed the recommendations of the recent serious and organised waste crime review, which shows that flytipping alone costs our economy £219 million each year in clean-up costs and lost revenues, and that fraud and misclassification of waste costs a similar amount.
