Northern Ireland Environment Minister Alex Attwood has announced a consultation on ambitious new plans to keep waste out of landfill. The Minister is proposing that future delivery of the waste strategy should focus solely on areas where most impact can be achieved, using a series of planned interventions to reach specific targets.
Among the proposed targets for 2020 are increasing recycling and re-use of household, construction and industrial waste to 60% and the delivery of a major waste infrastructure programme which will divert over 1.5 million tonnes of residual waste from landfill. Outlining his plan, the Minister commented, "These are very ambitious targets that I am setting. It is right to do so, given the benefits to the environment, the valuable resources locked in waste and the jobs that could be produced. We need to be imaginative and push ourselves to achieve them. Certainly as Environment Minister I will be pushing myself to the limit."
He went on to say, "I am determined that we exploit the opportunity presented by the revised Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC to place ourselves at the heart of a sustainable global economy. To do that we need to work with our closest neighbours to develop new, imaginative and cost-effective ways of managing and maximizing the increasingly scarce and finite resources that we are still sending to landfill. Re-focusing delivery of the waste programme on those areas where we have the greatest impact is a significant step in that process and I urge people to have their say on these important issues."
The consultation to the Addendum to the Waste Management Strategy will remain open until 20 October 2011, and can be viewed at http://www.doeni.gov.uk.
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