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Front of Pipe homepage, updated 24th November 2007

Throw away the whole idea of disposal!

End of pipe waste management focusses on rubbish and pollution after it happens. How on Earth do we get rid of all this stuff? Most of the attention and investment is lost in 'solutions' wich produce minimal benefit and many problems, such as landfill (dumping to land), incineration (dumping to air) and MBT (turning mixed waste into more waste). End of pipe waste management offers no challenge whatsoever to the throwaway society and has no place in a sustainable future.

For the past 10 years East Sussex County Council have pursued a single-minded single-option waste 'solution' - incineration. They plan to incinerate 28 tonnes per hour of reusable materials, 24 hours a day for the next 30 years. However, dumping mixed waste into the air as toxic pollution and greenhouse gases is becoming obsolete - read how this will happen.

Cambridgeshire County Council plan to lock themselves into a dodgy 28 year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) to turn mixed waste into polluting and valueless 'products' at a cost to local taxpayers of £750 million. See a list of 'tricks' used by Cambridgeshire County Council to "deliver" their PFI, against the interests of the public they serve. On the eve of a final decision by Councillors, Council staff circulated last ditch misinformation to Councillors and the PFI Procurement Board. The Council now have five outstanding complaints which await investigation, dating back to Ocober 2005.

According to HM Treasury "key policy" the entire national waste PFI programme is fatally flawed (due to the technologies being fast changing and lack of any effective accountability) and should be halted immediately. Waste PFIs are allowing vulnerable national and local public service values to be replaced by a business ethos.

See DEFRA's cover-up of their refusal to apply the PFI criteria which were supposed to preserve democratic accountability and future possibilities for sustainability. Here is James Greyson's 2006 "Investigation into the waste PFI Project in Cambridgeshire". Review the 2005 evidence for DEFRA to suspend Cambridgeshire's PFI waste plans to allow time for a fresh strategy and new options. DEFRA have so far refused to investigate.

Everything can end up as new resources!

Front of pipe waste management means planning to ensure that all materials can end up as new resources and not as accumulating wastes in the air, land or water. Everything that today is allowed to become waste can be managed by prevention, reuse, composting, recycling or clean-fuel production (via new technologies such as cellulosic fermentation and plasma gasification). Continuing dependence on mixed waste dumping can be discarded!

See a selection of front of pipe ideas for homes, workplaces, local authorities and governments. Everyone can stop waste before things get messy!

See how Cambridgeshire could save millions with a front of pipe strategy.

Front of Pipe is run by sustainability analyst James Greyson.

James' other sites:
www.blindspot.org.uk There's hope for sustainability, but not where everyone's looking. A single new economic instrument could turn modern capitalist markets from problem-maker to problem-solver.
www.grosspeacefulproduct.org.uk A small change to national accounts can support a culture of peace.

* MBT, Mechanical and Biological Treatment is an end of pipe disposal method, generating 'products' with no serious prospect of a positive market value. MBT recycles a small proportion of waste into low grade (contaminated) materials and turns the remainder into RDF (contaminated Refused Derived Fuel for disposal to air in an incinerator) and grey compost (contaminated compost, illegal to use on soil). Investment in MBT subsidises waste-burning and blocks vital future investment in facilities for converting source-separated waste into clean fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol (now in commercial production elsewhere), hydrogen, methane (from anaerobic digestion), and Advanced Thermal Conversion fuels (as planned in Bristol).