States puts its bins out for waste debate

THE hunt for Guernsey's new waste strategy took another step forward last week as Public Services threw the doors open to the public again. It hosted the second of a series of workshops designed to give islanders a large say in whatever the eventual solution will be. Whatever the dangers of trying to please all the people all of the time, the invited delegates taking part will be more informed by the end of it all. Confidence in the process is greater than it was when the first workshops were held in September, where the criteria to use when assessing the strategy and objectives for it were worked on. Those criteria - things like environmental impact and technical feasibility - had been cut from a unwieldy 25 to 12 because of the feedback received. This time, focus moved to the different scenarios that could provide a solution. Independent consultation manager Jess Bishop has been leading the workshops - which managed to avoid political involvement the first time round, although not this time, as departments sent along a States member to take part. Maybe they felt they were not being invited to the party enough. 'A strategy might be thought of as a recipe that mixes together a range of ingredients. The ingredients for a waste strategy are the many options for particular methods or approaches, such as minimisation, composting or landfill. 'And just as in most cooking, certain ingredients do not naturally go well with others,' he said. 'For example, there is little point in careful waste separation if all the waste then gets mixed again in some sort of treatment plant.' Before the workshop, PSD sent out briefing notes on the different technologies - all information that is available on its waste section on the gov.gg website. The next stage of the strategy will test up to 10 different scenarios in detail. 'The scenarios to test need to include a wide range to really stretch out the comparisons so that sensible and fully informed final choices can emerge. 'This also helps to work out how different ideas from different initial scenarios can be combined into new, even better ones. A baseline of how Guernsey does things now will be one option to compare everything else with.' During the workshop, delegates sat in groups and were asked to put together six scenarios, which were meant to be a range that included options people might not be happy with so that everything was tested fairly. Firstly, people selected what prevention methods could be used, from just promotional work to legislation and subsidies. They then had to select what reuse options they wanted tested - one option here was a collection service for items such as furniture. Next up was recycling, again from just more education right up to full food, green waste and dry recycling collections. Then came treatment - perhaps a gasification plant? An off-island incinerator? What about anaerobic digestion? And finally, how to dispose of what is left after all that - a new landfill site, maybe. It reportedly proved too much for one group at the Wednesday workshop, members of which could not agree on even one scenario as strong personalities from different sides of the debate clashed. But for the most part, once people had shed their preconceptions and pet projects, it seemed to work well. The workshop ended with people considering what constraints should be considered when assessing the scenarios - time came up as a big issue that had not been initially listed. What will be looked at in the next round of workshops will be more testing to get any kind of consensus on the importance given to each of the criteria - how one is weighted against the other. 'These are important because what might seem to be the top one or two scenarios can look very different if a factor such as cost is given particular weight,' said Mr Bishop. A long road still lies ahead - the next workshop could need delegates to attend two evenings rather than one. Public Services' timetable is still posted online. It states that a Green Paper will go to the States this spring for the tender process to then start in the autumn. This is the same department that has to look at the airport refurbishment and has said it will be back before the end of the year with proposals for taking some of its business units out of direct political control. It faces a tough year ahead.