Proposed New Waste Laws

People living in Guernsey are being given the opportunity to have their say on
the island's new waste management and pollution law.

The draft regulations have been made available on the States website.

Representations must be submitted to the Environmental Health Department by 29 January.

Director of Environmental Health and Pollution Val Cameron said although the
regulations were not just about Longue Hougue, they will control its use.

from the BBC website.

If you want to find out the official information on this, it is deep within the States website here. LINKEY

There is a lack of a simple explanation and information on why this is proposed and how it will impact on every person on the Island. So what is it all about?

As we all know, we are close to signing a contract with Suez to build a new incinerator. This will have a very high gate charge and will also need to be fed with as much high-calorie waste as possible to keep the fires burning. To get hold of this 'food' they need to ensure that it is not disposed of by other means, such as bonfires, private incinerators etc. The proposed new legislation obviously prevents the burning of any waste without a licence.

As a controlling measure, only licensed waste hauliers will be allowed to transport waste. This is where the impact will be very noticeable to the general public. When a householder has some minor building work carried out, the builder will no longer be allowed to throw a bag or two of rubbish in the back of his van, it will be left on site for the householder to deal with. On larger jobs, skips will have to be used, with very high costs, paid for by the customer. Tradesmen will no longer be able to take away their rubbish, sort it back at the yard and dispose of it in the most cost-effective way, it will all have to be transported by a licensed haulier and taken to a licensed waste site (incinerator.)

If a tree surgeon has to cut or trim a tree, he will not be able to cut it up for logs and sell in on unless he has 3 separate licenses, one to transport the waste, one to store and process the waste and one to dispose of the waste (sell the logs.)

Many garaged currently use waste engine oil to heat the workshops. This provides them with a free source of fuel and saved them the disposal costs. This will be banned, meaning that the garages will have to replace their heating systems and burn normal heating oil. This additional cost will have to be passed on to the customers.

These proposals are naturally supported by the existing waste and skip companies. They will be the ones awarded waste haulier licenses and already have premises suitable to sort the waste to maximise the profit. Large builders (RG Falla etc) already have a waste haulage division so will not be impacted so much but the smaller contractors that home owners use will be the ones effected.

I have worked with these regulations during my time in England. The cost repercussions on certain jobs are great. Take a simple job like laying a patio (not a job that I am personally involved in.) The builder currently would remove the existing surface, put it in the back of his truck and dump it at Ronez for recycling at £5 per tonne, he then loads up with a couple of tonnes of hardcore in the same yard and returns to site. After tipping the hardcore, the truck is loaded with subsoil which is taken to Longue Hougue and dumped at £11 per tonne. It returns via Norman Piette with a load of paving slabs. Under the new regulations, the old patio and soil would be placed into skips and taken away at a cost of over £100 per tonne yet the builder's truck would still have to cover the same mileage to collect the new materials.

I am sure that these new regulations will be passed by the States with little debate as few Deputies will really understand what they are about and what the effect will be.

I'm a little mushroom

Spirit, thanks for the explanation!! It sounds modern & expensive but looks like it's very good!