The Future of Waste in Essex

Last year in Essex we produced a massive 700,000 tonnes of household waste and with your help we recycled an impressive 36% of it.  However, this still meant that over 440,000 tonnes of household rubbish was sent to be buried in the ground in landfill sites.

A key part of our solution to the waste issue is to encourage high levels of recycling;  however we will always need to deal with the waste that is left.  In order to deliver an innovative and resource efficient waste management system for Essex we need to invest in new technologies which treat the residual waste and which can extract further recyclable material from the waste.

Councils across Essex have developed a Joint Municipal Waste Management strategy for dealing with waste in the future.  This will mean lots more recycling, waste minimisation and the use of new treatment processes to replace landfill.

As part of the consultation process, local people were asked about their recycling habits and what they thought about Essex's future plans for disposing of household waste.

A huge 84% were keen that once all recycling and composting had taken place, Essex Councils should avoid sending waste to landfill and instead use a process called Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) which turns part of the remaining non-recyclable waste into fuel for energy production.

There are many environmental and financial benefits of diverting waste from landfill, such as helping to tackle climate change, better use of valuable resources and paying less in landfill tax.

For more information on the strategy please visit the Essex County Council website (click here).