New regional waste website launched

A NEW website has been launched to raise awareness of the need for alternative food and residual waste treatment facilities in the South West Wales region.

The South West Wales Waste Partnership includes the Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Bridgend councils.

All five local authorities are committed to recycling and composting and are working together to find the most sustainable, cost effective, and practical solution for the treatment of our food and non-recyclable waste.

The website www.southwestwaleswastepartnership.co.uk has been developed to provide as much information as possible to residents.

Cllr Ted Latham, Chair of the Joint Committee, governing the project, said: “One of the most important environmental challenges facing us today is what we do with our rubbish. We can’t just keep putting it into holes in the ground. Not only is space running out fast but the waste we throw away produces harmful gases that pollute the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.

“Once we have reduced and recycled as much as we can, we then need to find new ways of treating the waste that is left over. By building new facilities to treat our left over waste, we can recover this resource and use it to generate heat and electricity.”

Local authorities have both recycling targets and landfill allowances to meet with large financial penalties – potentially running into millions of pounds – if they fail to achieve them.

Cllr Latham added: “It is important that residents living in the South West Wales region are aware of what the partnership is doing and why. I hope people will visit the new website which has lots of information, including the various waste treatment technologies that we are looking at.”