Raising awareness of air quality issues and how these may be monitored is the next focus for the OWL (Optimised Waste and Logistics) Partnership.

OWL brings together suppliers from the waste, transport, and logistics industries who work in partnership with each other and organisations such as FORS, CILT and CIWM to develop integrated products and services. 

Air pollution is now a major health threat and most councils have declared AQMAs (Defra's air quality monitoring areas). OWL will expand its focus for 2019 to incorporate air quality monitoring on its agenda of developing an integrated approach to transport safety, compliance, and sustainability. 

CMS SupaTrak, which runs the OWL initiative on behalf of its partners, has teamed up with EarthSense to create a mobile air monitoring system that fixes to vehicles and identifies areas of high pollution. MD Jason Airey said: 'According to the WHO, around a million UK citizens will die from air pollution-related disease by 2040 if existing Government policies are followed. We believe that the first step to demonstrable improvements is robust monitoring and by working closely with our waste sector customers, and leading vehicle OEMs, waste vehicles can be multi-purposed to include air quality monitoring devices'

OWL chair Barry Sheerman MP, who is also the chair of the Leadership Council of the Global Network for Road Safety Legislators and the UK's Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: 'OWL is committed to developing an integrated approach to air quality, transport safety, and sustainability, and multi-purposing commercial fleet vehicles to measure key environmental parameters will set an important standard in the world of transport and logistics'

The OWL initiative is regarded as instrumental in driving up standards of safety and compliance and regular roadshows around the country bring together public and private sector organisations. 

2019 Roadshows

OWL Roadshow Wales

7 March 2019 ' St Davids Hotel, Cardiff

OWL Roadshow Scotland

4 April 2019 ' Mar Hall Hotel & Spa, Bishopton, Scotland

OWL Roadshow Midlands

4 July 2019 ' Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire

NI Waste Expo

3 October 2019 ' Titanic, Belfast

OWL Roadshows are free to attend but require registration. To register go to www.supatrak.com/owl. CPD Points are usually awarded for attendance at OWL Roadshows, see individual events for details.