We Need to Think About the Weather

Published in the 21 October 2005 edition of Resource Management & Recovery

Following a recent downpour that lead to extensive floods, a waste manager had to operate one of his landfill sites that was without power for five days. The gas control system was affected and the leachate control system was out of action for four months.

He had to tanker the leachate off site for treatment, increasing costs significantly. The weather didn’t discriminate against waste management treatments as both his recycling and composting facilities were flooded, as well as a civic amenity site.

The flood damage to property resulted in an increase in the amount of construction and demolition waste produced. There was also an increase in the disposal of damaged household white goods.

A report by Entec on the potential impacts of climate change on waste management concluded that the above, and other impacts such as the ones below could occur in the coming decades.

• Increased risk of disruption to supporting infrastructure e.g. road and rail, from increased flooding from surface water, groundwater and drainage systems;
  
• Increased risk of damage to site buildings from storms, in turn leading to increased insurance premiums;
  
• Increased health risks to workers from more sunshine and greater indoor and outdoor temperatures; and
  
• Increased risk of inundation of low lying coastal facilities.

We are in the early stages of understanding these changes and, as yet, they are not at the top of the list for most waste managers, policy makers and regulators. If, as looks likely, these changes do continue, they could have significant impacts on the way we manage our waste, so we need to put much more effort into assessing in more detail how climate change might affect waste management.

We also need to start planning how we will have to adapt our waste management system to a hotter, wetter and stormier climate. For instance, how would we manage if the supporting infrastructure becomes disrupted more frequently? Will it cost more to transport waste and resources further to facilities that haven’t been affected or do we need to develop more storage capacity?

Will future working conditions be acceptable to staff? Will they need more protection from increase sunshine and higher temperatures and/or will processing facilities require a higher standard of building services e.g. air conditioning? Do we need to reinforce or modify existing facilities so that they can cope with more extreme conditions? How can we incorporate climate change considerations into the construction and operation of new facilities? How will insurance premiums for waste management be affected? Will insurance cover be available to vulnerable sites?

In order to answer these and other questions, we need to develop a sensible risk management and decision making framework for waste management and climate change. We also need to develop our capacity on waste management and climate change through research and training, so that we can understand what these changes mean and how best to respond.

Jim Kersey is a director at consultancy Entec.

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