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Waste Data Management

With an increasing world population, the problem of achieving sustainable waste management is one of the most critical social, environmental and economic issues facing our consumer-based societies.

The European Union throws away over 1.3 billion tonnes of waste each year. The UK alone produces over 400 million tonnes of waste, with 28 million tonnes of this coming from households. Most UK waste currently ends up in landfill sites, with only 17% of household waste being recycled or composted. The picture is similar in the US, with the Environmental Protection Agency reporting that ‘household trash’ accounted for 236 million tons (equivalent to 214 million metric tonnes) of waste a year. Internationally the problem is both huge and growing. However, increasing public awareness and concern for the environment is leading to more legislation and targets for waste reduction and recycling.

The European Union requires waste to be closely tracked and monitored by responsible agencies, and has issued a significant number of directives related to waste management, including an upcoming target to reduce landfill of biodegradable waste to 50% by 2013. ‘Reduce, reuse and recycle’ are the cornerstones of an environmentally friendly waste management policy.

Tessella has developed a Waste Data Management System, originally for West Sussex County Council, which reached the finals of the 2005 National e-government awards. The system was subsequently adapted for use by Cambridgeshire County Council.

In the Environment Agency’s report of ‘Data Quality Visit for the Landfill Allowances and Trading Scheme’ at Cambridgeshire (published December 2007) the report authors highlighted areas which they found were particularly good and which demonstrated best practice. Having reviewed the Waste Data Management System, the authors stated: 

“The Web based system allows good robust data to be collected. The system itself is user friendly and straightforward. The information produced and the cross checks on it allow the authority to have a very high level of confidence in their data.”

 

The Tessella Waste Data Management System:

  • Has been designed to meet the waste data and contract management needs of local authorities in the era of Waste Data Flow, Landfill Allowance Target reporting and long-term PFI contracts
  • Supports multi-user, multi-site waste partnership, and provides versatile, secure remote access to authorized users via the Internet
  • Can easily be integrated with Council and third-party systems via API and web service interfaces and is e-GIF compliant
  • DEFRA can now accept the electronic upload data into the Waste Data Flow system.  The Tessella Waste Data Management System is being enhanced to enable clients to collate, check and upload their data without the need for report printing and manual data re-entry
  • Can be externally hosted, reducing the burden of support on internal IT teams to minimize internal support costs
  • Is built upon proven, readily available commercial products from Oracle and Microsoft, and was designed from the outset with a flexible modular architecture that supports future development and expansion. Any element of the system may readily be replaced by similar components from alternative suppliers, ensuring future maintainability without product tie-in

For further information on how the system can be used to monitor other waste service provisions, or extended to monitor other types of contract, please email info@tessella.com