Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister Mark H Durkan has today (21 October), revealed the government’s operational plan for managing and regulating waste.

The ‘Managing and Regulation Waste in Northern Ireland; DOE Operational Plan’ outlines a range of actions that can be taken to make ‘fundamental changes’ to waste management in the country.

Underpinning Northern Ireland’s new waste strategy ‘Delivering Resource Efficiency’ and National Waste Prevention Programme, the operational plan has been designed to help cut off the supply of waste that might be poorly managed or illegally disposed off, and to bring more waste operators into full compliance with waste law.

It comes off the back of a December 2013 report written by Chris Mills, the former Director of the Welsh Environment Agency, which highlighted the problem of illegal dumping. It was following the release of this ‘sobering’ report that Durkan announced his commitment to publish an Operational Waste Plan for Northern Ireland.

Report details

The operational plan reads: ‘The systemic failures and criminality that exist within the current system of waste management in Northern Ireland requires a new approach.

‘A key part of this new approach is for the DOE to improve the traditional methods of regulation and enforcement by implementing the recommendations set out in the Mills Report.

‘However, the Department alone cannot bring about the widescale changes needed. A major emphasis of this plan is to build much stronger collaborative partnerships. Key partners will be the 11 new local councils who will play a key role in managing the waste system, especially in relation to the collection and handling of waste.

‘The work to build these partnerships between central and local government has already begun and this will form a key component of this operational plan.’

It goes on to highlight that enhanced liason between relevant bodies (i.e local government and waste management) will also be necessary to promote both resource efficiency and to ensure that the management of the waste produced complies with the relevant legislation.

As such, the plan outlines a range of actions that the department will take to improve waste management, including:

• using the new Waste Co-ordination Group for ‘effective planning’ of joint activities between central and local government;
• changing the current appointment and recruitment processes to ensure staff carrying out regulatory work have the ‘right aptitudes, skills and experience’ and training the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) client managers to be assigned to key waste operators;
• developing voluntary Prosperity Agreements specific to the waste sector with a focus on resource efficiency ;
• focusing on the regulation of problematic and harmful waste streams (e.g. tyres, plasterboard, wood, etc);
• Improving the waste disposal authorisation application processes and making changes to the current planning enforcement policy to no longer allow the granting of retrospective planning permission for sand and gravel workings;
• developing ‘effective guidance’ for waste operators on key topics, such as planning and authorisations;
• strengthening the Duty of Care provisions, Fit & Proper Person Test and systems for monitoring and analysing waste flows;
• creating new strategic waste infrastructure that can be more easily regulated and monitored; and
• creating a new to make the polluter pay to remediate or remove illegally deposited waste.

‘Powerful co-operation will go a long way’

Commenting on the need to implement a radical new approach, Mark H Durkan said:

“The failures identified by the Mills Report require a new radical, and coordinated approach. A key part of this is for DOE to improve traditional methods of regulation and enforcement.

“My position is clear, we need to use every mechanism available to tackle the serious problems identified. A narrow approach relying mainly on traditional crime fighting and tougher enforcement is indeed critical to creating a legitimate and successful waste sector in Northern Ireland. However, used in isolation they cannot solve the problem.

“Arguably the most important actions in the waste plan will require strong partnership working between the new local councils and my department. Powerful co-operation between the central and local arms of government will go a long way to ensuring the proper management of waste in the North.”

Durkan added that he has recruited Mills to work within NIEA to help bring about these changes.

Read the ‘Managing and Regulation Waste in Northern Ireland; DOE Operational Plan’.