GARWER WasteXchange News |
| Waste industries USA finalizes privatization Posted: 09 May 2008 06:14 PM CDT Shareholders of Waste Industries USA, Raleigh, N.C., have approved the company's privatization transaction for $38 per share. The transaction is expected to be complete today. The company's shares were de-listed from the Nasdaq exchange before trading opened today. The transaction involves a merger agreement with an investment group led by Lonnie Poole Jr., the company's founder and chairman; Jim Perry, the company's president and CEO; and financial partners Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and Goldman Sachs. On Dec. 18, 2007, the company announced it had accepted the group's $544 million total offer, an increase from the original $36.75 offer. However, the next day, a class-action lawsuit was filed in Superior Court of Wake County, N.C., alleging that the original sale price was unfair and that the company's board of directors breached their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. The suit was later withdrawn |
| Member states aiming to weaken waste targets Posted: 09 May 2008 06:11 PM CDT National governments are set for a confrontation with MEPs after rejecting their calls to include ambitious waste prevention and recycling targets in an ongoing revision of the EU's waste management rules. In its second reading vote last month the European parliament's environment committee reinstated amendments on prevention and recycling that were rejected by the council of ministers during the first reading of the law. MEPs called on member states to stabilise waste production at 2009 levels by 2012, and said half of all household waste and 70 per cent of construction, demolition, industrial and manufacturing waste should be recycled by 2020. Rapporteur Caroline Jackson said the council would have to agree to the targets in exchange for the parliament's support for reclassifying waste-to-energy incineration as a recovery operation. But a document outlining the council's position ahead of negotiations with parliament reveals that governments are attempting to significantly weaken the proposed targets. In the paper, the council rejects the parliament's proposed 2012 waste stabilisation target, and instead calls on the European commission to consider setting "qualitative waste prevention objectives for 2020". On recycling, governments call for 40 per cent of paper, metal, plastic and glass waste from "households or other origins" to be recycled by 2020. This wording suggests that recycled industrial and manufacturing waste could count towards the target, and is therefore significantly weaker that the separate household and commercial waste targets adopted by MEPs. Sources close to the council working group that drew up the document say its intention was to frame the targets in a way that avoids going beyond existing obligations under EU waste legislation, for example on packaging. An earlier draft of the document specified a 50 per cent recycling target, but this was watered-down by senior diplomats, ENDS understands. The council is also seeking to downgrade a proposed five-step EU waste hierarchy to a "guiding principle", instead of the environment committee's preferred "general rule". Governments also want to reinstate provisions on waste by-products deleted by the committee at second reading. A first informal meeting between Ms Jackson, council officials and the commission was held on Monday at which government representatives "expressed their concerns over the targets". Afterwards Ms Jackson told ENDS that the parliament was "disappointed" by the council's position, and said she intends to "pursue the 50 and 70 per cent recycling targets". The parliament has commissioned an impact assessment to determine the feasibility of meeting its proposed prevention and recycling targets. The report should be finalised before negotiations on reaching a second-reading agreement on the revision begin later this month. [b]Follow-up[/b]: [url=http://www.consilium.europa.eu/]EU council of ministers[/url] | [url=http://www.consilium.europa.eu/" href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/">EU council of ministers, tel: +32 2 281 6111, plus <a title="http://www.endseuropedaily.com/docs/80509b.doc" href="http://www.endseuropedaily.com/docs/80509b.doc]council position paper[/url]. |
| US waste companies develop world's largest landfill gas-to-LNG facility Posted: 09 May 2008 06:04 PM CDT Collecting garbage and recyclables in California is about to get a lot cleaner, thanks to a joint venture between Linde North America and Waste Management (NYSE:WMI) that will create the world's largest facility to convert landfill gas into clean vehicle fuel. Waste Management, North America's largest waste management company, and Linde North America – part of The Linde Group, a leading global gases and engineering company, this week announced a joint venture to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, located at the Altamont Landfill near Livermore, California to convert landfill gas into a clean vehicle fuel. The project offers a unique opportunity to "close the loop" by fueling hundreds of collection trucks with clean fuel produced from garbage. The companies will partner to install systems to purify and liquefy the landfill gas Waste Management collects from the natural decomposition of organic waste in the landfill. When the facility begins operating in 2009 it is expected to produce up to 13,000 gallons a day of LNG. Pat Murphy, president of Linde North America, said, "Linde and Waste Management are joining together to clean up our environment by capturing and reusing landfill gas for vehicle fueling, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30,000 tons per year. Linde is using its expertise in designing and developing LNG plants around the world to create a clean and sustainable energy solution for the residents of California." Duane Woods, senior vice president of Waste Management, said, "This project has the potential to allow us to tap into a valuable source of clean energy while greatly reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. This will be the largest plant of its kind and we hope to break new ground by producing commercial quantities. Natural gas is already the cleanest burning fuel available for our collection trucks, and the opportunity to use recovered landfill gas offers enormous environmental benefits to the communities we serve." The $15.5 million Waste Management-Linde project will receive grant assistance from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the California Air Resources Board, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, calls the project a "very significant step towards helping meet Governor Schwarzenegger's new, low-carbon fuel standard. The LNG produced from the Altamont landfill gas will be a virtually zero-carbon transportation fuel. This is a key milestone in helping us develop the facilities needed to produce more than 200 million gallons of clean transportation fuel each year from the garbage in California's landfills." Linde is focused on finding ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and our emission of greenhouse gases by developing alternative energy solutions. These include alternative energy technologies using hydrogen, biogas, LNG and other sustainable replacements for gasoline, diesel and other oil products. Around the world, Linde provides technical solutions for the processing, transportation and storage of LNG and biogas, ranging from one of the world's largest LNG plants in Hammerfest, Norway, to biogas fueling stations for drivers in Sweden. Waste Management is a founding member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and the first solid waste company to join the California Climate Action Registry. In 2003, the company committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through increased recycling, the use of alternative transportation fuels, and the beneficial use of landfill gas. This project is also part of the company's environmental sustainability initiative to double its waste-based energy production from the equivalent of 1 million to 2 million homes each year by 2020 as well as directing capital spending of up to $500 million per annum over a 10-year period to increase the fuel efficiency of its fleet by 15 percent and reduce fleet emissions by 15 percent by 2020 as well as investments in new technologies to enhance its business. |
| England's household waste recycling rate hits 33% Posted: 09 May 2008 06:40 AM CDT England's household waste recycling rate has risen to over 33%, according to new data published today by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Provisional quarterly figures submitted by local authorities to the government's WasteDataFlow database from July to September 2007 show that recycling rates grew to an average of 33.2% between October 2006 and September 2007. This is a significant rise compared to the 30.9% recorded between April 2006 and March 2007. Waste to landfill also dropped in the same period form 16.9 to 16.1 million tonnes, the department explained. Total municipal waste changed little in the year to end September 2007, decreasing from 29.1 million tonnes to 29 million tonnes - or 0.3%. A similar small decrease was reported in total household waste, from 25.8 to 25.7 million tonnes, Defra added. The best regions for recycling were the East of England and the South West, which both recorded a 40% recycling average, with London coming bottom at 24%. "[b]Encouraging[/b]" The findings were welcomed by the Local Government Association, who labelled them "very encouraging" and praised both residents and council. However, Councillor Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board, stressed that there was still much more to do in order to avoid fines of up to £3 billion for sending waste to landfill. He said: "While these figures are a positive move in the right direction, there is an inescapable need to do more. Britain is the dustbin of Europe, throwing more waste into landfill than in any other country in the EU. It is pleasing to see our recycling rates reach a high of 33 per cent, but other countries on the continent are still recycling up to twice as much." He added: "Councils and council tax payers are still facing fines of up to £3 billion if we do not dramatically reduce the amount of waste thrown into landfill. It is vital we look at alternatives to the status quo to deliver an even better deal for the taxpayer." [b]Provisional [/b] Defra explained that its data was provisional because not all returns had been completed at the time it had been downloaded from Wastedataflow, and that full validation and returns for the database could be revised by local authorities during the scheme year. There are also seasonal effects on waste arisings and management which the department said meant care needed to be taken when assessing trends. However, it stressed that unvalidated returns has a "small overall impact" on the statistics, accounting for 1% of the estimated total municipal waste. Tables showing summary estimates, by region, and a more detailed description of the data and methodology can be found on the Defra website. Final figures will be released in the annual National Statistics release in November 2008. |
| Posted: 09 May 2008 06:38 AM CDT Reducing the amount of British food waste sent to landfill could save 18m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in emissions annually, according to a government-backed study published on Thursday. The 237-page study shows that one-third of the food bought in Britain each year - or 6.7m tonnes - ends up in landfill. Most of this waste food is untouched and thus avoidable, authors say. The food and drinks sector has significant environmental impacts. Food waste emits methane and producing the food requires significant amounts of energy. See [url=http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/food_waste/research/the_food_we_waste.html]press release[/url] and [url=http://wrap.s3.amazonaws.com/the-food-we-waste.pdf]report[/url]. |
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