Waste

The issue: Airports generate large amounts of waste. We are responsible for managing around 30,000 tonnes of waste produced at Heathrow, most of which is generated by companies involved in cargo handling, retail, flight catering and aircraft maintenance.

Our own operations produce about 10% of this total figure.

Waste management is a significant expense for BAA. Reducing waste and recycling more is not just good for the environment, it also saves us money.

Our approach: We aim to achieve more with less, to reduce the inefficient use of resources and to reduce the cost of waste management to the business. We will achieve these goals by recycling and minimising our own waste stream and influencing airport users to manage their waste production and disposal. This approach reflects local and national waste objectives, including those set out in the UK Government’s 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy.

Our goals are:
By 2007:

• 30% of BAA contract waste to be recycled/composted
• achieve 100% compliance with waste legislation.

By 2010:

• 40% of BAA contract waste to be recycled/composted
• 0% growth in contract waste produced per passenger
• 100% compliance with duty of care and hazardous/special waste regulations
• 80% of construction waste to be recycled/composted.

By 2020:

• Zero waste to landfill
• 70% of BAA contract waste to be recycled/composted
• A reduction in BAA contract waste per passenger
• 100% compliance with duty of care and hazardous/special waste regulations
• 85% of construction waste to be recycled/composted.

BAA waste strategy
We are reviewing our BAA waste strategy (published in 2003) and will publish a new strategy in 2007. This will incorporate our improved understanding of our own waste streams, the recent changes in the waste industry and new technologies that have arisen in the last four years.

Our performance:
Target 2006/07: Increase the percentage of contract waste recycled from 25% in 2005/06 to 26%.
Performance against target: No progress made.

We achieved a recycling performance of 24.6% during 2006/07, slightly down compared to 25% we achieved in 2005/06. The period 2006/07 has been a challenging year for Heathrow and this has impacted on our recycling performance.

Security threat
In August, we had an unprecedented security threat at Heathrow. The security restrictions on what passengers could take on-board were very restrictive and resulted in a twelve fold increase of waste generated from our security search areas. To manage the health and safety implications of the storage of such quantities of waste, we had to divert some of our recycling resource to helping with removing the waste and disposing safely.

We have been focusing on ensuring that the right processes are in place to make sure that health, safety and environmental legislation requirements are met. We also have a team in place who are assessing the opportunities for recycling some of the products left at security. 

Recycling plants
In June, the unavailability of one of the recycling plants for making fibre fuel reduced the amount we could recycle since we had no alternative recycling plant.

Waste contract
In 2006, we agreed a ten-year contract with a new waste management supplier for Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. The new contractor started at Heathrow on 1 February 2007.

The new contract will help us meet our targets by:

• Using local material recovery facilities to increase recycling
• Using a waste incinerator to generate energy from 2008
• Introducing pollutants, oils and lubricants bins airside to help airlines manage hazardous waste generated during aircraft maintenance.

Energy from waste 
To support our BAA corporate strategies on waste and energy, BAA Heathrow commissioned a feasibility study into the emerging waste to energy technologies. This study developed a map of the waste flows at Heathrow and then reviewed the opportunities of generating energy from this waste using the new technologies such as anaerobic digestion, gasification, pyrolysis and MBT (mechanical biological treatment). The results of this study will be published in 2007.

Our plans:
Target 2007 : to increase recycling for the general waste handled by the airport waste contract from 25% in 2006 to 30% by 31 December 2007.

The main opportunity for us to improve our recycling performance will be through the new contract, for example the use of a materials recovery facility off-site will raise the performance to 30% on average across 2007.
 
We are also reviewing further opportunities to segregate waste for recycling on the airport. For example, we get a lot of feedback from passengers that they would like to see recycling facilities provided in the terminals. Up until now, we have focused our recycling activities on maximising the recycling after the waste has been collected from the airport. In 2007, we will be looking at opportunities to introduce recycling facilities in at least one terminal, and where it is not yet appropriate provide communications to passengers that we are recycling 25% of our waste.