Northern Ireland’s Department of the Environment (DOE NI) has released its National Waste Prevention Programme, ‘The Waste Prevention Programme For Northern Ireland – The Road To Zero Waste’, which outlines the steps that the Northern Irish Government is taking to reduce waste arisings and boost resource efficiency.

The plan has been published in the wake of the European Commission’s revised Waste Framework Directive (rWFD) requirement that all member states ‘develop National Waste Prevention Programmes (NWPPs) concentrating on the key environmental impacts and taking into account the whole life-cycle of products and materials’, by 12 December 2013.

Speaking to Resource, a DOE Spokesperson said: “The NI Waste Prevention Plan was delayed to allow a fundamental and strategic review of waste issues in Northern Ireland to be undertaken. The review was requested following the discovery of significant amounts of illegal waste at a site in Campsie. The departmental response to the Mills Report was published in April 2014. Following consideration of the report recommendations, the departmental response, and Action Plan to implement the commitments given by the Minister, the WPP was finalised and cleared over the summer months for publication in September 2014.”

They added that “although there has been a delay in publishing the Waste Prevention Programme, key elements of the programme have been rolled out during the last nine months” (such as the launch of the £240,000 Rethink Waste Third Sector Capacity Fund).

Waste Prevention Programme NI details

In October 2013, a revised Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy, ‘Delivering Resource Efficiency’, was published. This strategy moved the emphasis of waste management in Northern Ireland from resource management (with landfill diversion as the key driver) to resource efficiency (i.e. using resources in the most effective way while minimising the impact of their use on the environment).

The NWPP builds on the waste strategy and is designed to ‘drive waste up the waste hierarchy’, deliver resource efficiency and ‘have a favourable impact on the Northern Ireland economy, helping to promote and support ‘green jobs’, and for the protection of the environment and conservation of resources’.

The DOE spokesperson said: “The Programme is an important component of the Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy – “Delivering Efficiency” published last year. It aims to decouple economic growth from the environment impacts associated with waste generation. It seeks to engage and encourage people to use resources efficiently and generate less waste. Finally, the Programme will establish improved resource efficiency and waste prevention within local businesses so they remain competitive in the global market.”

It outlines that DOE NI is targeting waste prevention through 13 ‘actions’:

Action 1 – Stakeholder Forum

• Hosting a stakeholder forum on waste prevention by December 2014, which will have a particular focus on establishing a repair and reuse network across Northern Ireland (see Action 11);

Action 2 - Rethink Waste Communications Campaign

• Developing a follow-up communications campaign to build on the initial Rethink Waste campaign, which includes waste prevention messaging to residents. As food waste is considered a ‘priority’ waste stream to tackle, the communications campaign will have a particular focus on preventing food waste (and will support the Love Food Hate Waste campaign);

Action 3 – European Week of Waste Reduction

• Continuing to support an annual waste prevention week and promote waste prevention across local government, the public sector, the third sector, businesses, schools, and the public throughout Northern Ireland;

Action 4 – Eco-Home Programme

• Assessing the feasibility of expanding the Eco-Home Programme across Northern Ireland;

Action 5 – Eco-Schools Programme

• Continuing support for the Eco-Schools Programme, including the waste topic relating to waste prevention and recycling;

Action 6 – Carrier Bag Levy

• Extending the carrier bag levy to low-cost reusable bags from January 2015;

Action 7 – Support for Voluntary Agreements with Business

• Working with partners to ‘ensure that voluntary agreements with business on waste and resource efficiency work well in Northern Ireland’, and include a focus on preventing waste;

​Action 8 – Zero Waste Projects

• Supporting zero waste projects through the Rethink Waste Fund (see action 12);

Action 9 – Voluntary Construction Sector Schemes

• Periodically reviewing the effectiveness of voluntary environmental schemes within the construction sector in determining whether to consider statutory instruments in the future;

Action 10 – Voluntary Agreement for the Construction Sector

• Working with partners and stakeholders to develop a follow-up voluntary agreement to Halving Waste to Landfill appropriate for Northern Ireland;

Action 11 – Reuse and Repair Network

• Working with partners to develop a reuse and repair network throughout Northern Ireland, supporting reuse and preparing for reuse infrastructure;

Action 12 – Support to the Third Sector

• Reviewing the Rethink Waste Fund to provide appropriate support to the Third Sector to enable business growth and capacity to be expanded. This will seek to provide access to capital funding and to offer grants over one to three years to the third sector; and

Action 13 – Reuse Quality Assurance

• Working with partners to: influence supply chains to promote reuse, develop new business models to assist reuse businesses; and promote reuse assurance standards. Locally, the Department of the Environment will seek to work with and support stakeholders to increase the reuse of electronic and electrical equipment, and will assist the development of new business models with partners for reuse schemes and promote standards such as PAS1412

Earlier this year, Environment Minister Mark H Durkan also set up a Resource Efficiency Directorate (RED) to: implement a regime of targeted inspections to ensure all waste operators comply with the law; create a new partnership with local government so that local councils and NIEA share information, resources and strategies to manage waste properly; and manage partnerships with Northern Ireland businesses to help them stop creating waste and cut costs.

Measuring Progress

Although there is no proposal to have a headline target for waste prevention ‘at this time’, DOE NI will monitor progress by:

• monitoring the amount of household waste arisings (although DOE NI says that ‘when more reliable data’ becomes available through other initiatives in the revised Waste Management Strategy, the amount of Commercial & Industrial Waste and Construction & Demolition Waste arisings will also be monitored); and
• monitoring the amount of household waste arisings per unit household expenditure ‘to assess trends relating to decoupling economic growth and waste arisings’ (Again, Commercial & Industrial Waste and Construction & Demolition Waste arisings per unit GVA2 will be monitored once ‘reliable data’ becomes available.)

NWPPs will need to be reviewed and revised at least every six years and will have to take into account the EC’s own waste prevention and decoupling objectives, which will be released by the end of 2014.

DOE NI has said that any revisions of its Waste Prevention Programme will take account of any future developments at a European level.

Read the ‘The Waste Prevention Programme For Northern Ireland – The Road To Zero Waste’ or find out more about National Waste Prevention Programmes.