28/09/2004

New waste management policy will improve environment

A new research strategy for waste management to be announced today will help pave the way towards a cleaner and better protected environment.

Defra's Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Howard Dalton will unveil the strategy at Waste 2004, a biennial International Conference with a focus on integrated waste management and pollution control policy.

The main objectives of the strategy are the delivery of better-informed sustainable waste management policy development, and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, at both national and local levels.

Professor Dalton said: "This strategy represents a useful step forward in the Government's long-term progress towards finding sustainable ways of managing waste.

"With good management, we can achieve greater national resource productivity and a cleaner, better-protected environment. To achieve these goals we need a solid evidence base and this waste research strategy, with its strategic focus and plans for disseminating research results, should help us to get closer to this goal."

Eight key themes of the strategy include sustainable resource consumption and management, systems for resource recovery, residual wastes management, market development and intervention, social dimensions, environment and health, economics and decision tools.

An annual budget of £5 million has been allocated to the Defra funded research with the new strategy expected to complete over three years.

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