The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) has launched a new waste management strategy for Northern Ireland entitled "Towards Resource Management". This aims to set out plans to modernise waste management policies and practices and to take into account new EU Directives and recent advances in waste technology. It comes a week after the DoE(NI) had been described by a Commons watchdog as "woeful" in implementing EU legislation into law. Chief Executive of the EHS Richard Rogers said "waste management and technology has advanced in recent years, and successive Directives have increased the challenges and targets we must meet. Northern Ireland needs a new network of waste disposal and treatment facilities to deal with the increasing quantities of waste diverted from landfill."
Northern Ireland is currently undergoing a period of considerable change in the way it is governed as a result of the Review of Public Administration, so it is essential that the Government play a crucial role in both leading and driving forward the actions contained in the new strategy, which they plan to do through a Strategic Waste Board. The original strategy, published in March 2000, will be replaced.
