CIWM publish waste sector Covid Response and Resilience Report
The Chartered Institute for Waste Management (CIWM) have published the waste sector Covid Response and Resilience Report, based on input from stakeholders from across the UK resources and waste sector. In partnership with the University of Exeter, CIWM developed this report to capture some of the learning from the first six months after the start of the UK-wide lockdown. Using qualitative research methodologies, a series of workshops and in-depth interviews were conducted which the REA contributed to, presenting its members’ actions and experiences. The exercise explored immediate challenges, winter preparedness, and what is needed to support longer term sector resilience.
Read the report in full here.
The report is organized to cover six main themes:
- Collaborative contingency planning
- Service delivery and infrastructure resilience
- Regulatory clarity and flexibility
- Data
- Health & Safety and general Covid-19 guidance
- People
In addition, CIWM identified eight priority areas for its own policy, technical, and external affairs work in 2021 and beyond:
- to support and promote the collaborative cross-sector working that has developed during the Covid-19 pandemic;
- to support policy measures to improve the capture of waste data, particularly for C&I waste, to better inform future policy and planning;
- to support and promote pan-UK contingency planning mechanisms for future sector resilience and the delivery of a ‘green recovery’;
- to provide additional support to Health & Safety sector expert groups including WISH and SWITCH, and to the community of healthcare waste professionals;
- to prioritise sector skills, training, and professional competence during 2021 and provide access to an expended range of mental health, wellbeing, and professional development support tools for CIWM Members;
- to work with UK governments to develop and implement policy frameworks, including Extended Producer Responsibility schemes, that support sector resilience;
- to work with UK governments to ensure that essential resources, waste, recycling, and re-use infrastructure is seen as strategically important to public health, the environment, and a low carbon future; and
- to work with CIWM’s Republic of Ireland Centre to carry out a similar assessment of the Covid-19 sector response and resilience.