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ESA Parliamentary Seminar: Managing Waste in the European Union: How Does the United Kingdom Compare?
Dirk Hazell, Chief Executive, ESA
House of Commons, 28 January 2003
Mr Chairman, My Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen and distinguished guests. Thank you all for coming. ESA has been delighted to facilitate this event through Object C of the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme.
Germany already recovers value from 60% of its biodegradable municipal waste, Austria already recovers value from 80%, Flanders already recovers value from 84%, Denmark already recovers value from 95% and the UK manages 20%.
Austria, Denmark and Holland already comply with the biodegradable municipal waste diversion targets in the Landfill Directive.
As both ESA and the Strategy Unit have pointed out, the United Kingdom will not on current trends deliver compliance with the Landfill Directive even by the extended deadline of 2020.
We agree with much that the Minister of State said. We welcome his sense of urgency and explicit recognition of the scale of the challenge. I recognise the importance of rhetoric in starting to change culture but am not sure that the UK's targets can accurately be described as ambitious: the UK held out in the Council of Ministers against separate collection of electrical goods. At this stage, the Government can only demonstrate the importance of what is needed by delivering practical action.
The list of EU environmental laws with which the UK is in breach is still getting longer rather than shorter.
Over the past year alone, the UK has found itself in trouble over matters such as the implementation of the Ozone Depleting Substances Regulation, the Landfill Directive and the Waste Framework Directive.
Only last week, the UK again found itself in the European dock, this time with Greece for company.
Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström rightly said that "European environmental protection policies are pointless if countries fail to keep their promises".
Quite apart from environmental considerations, there is another very serious problem for the UK.
Our economy is exceptionally reliant on the open international trading system of which our European home market is an essential component.
The UK risks losing an opportunity to build the world class environmental industry to which ESA's Members are so capable of contributing.
Even more seriously for British jobs, unless the UK can turn the tide on its increasingly poor record for implementing EU environmental law it will become increasingly difficult, to give just one example, for the UK to secure access to the enlarged EU market, through enforcement of EU laws, in sectors like financial services and civil aviation which are by any standards central to the UK's economic interest.
And if we get a really bad reputation for consistently failing to implement EU environmental laws, it will also be increasingly difficult for the UK to persuade the Union to negotiate on our behalf to keep open World markets outside Europe which are so exceptionally important to our economy.
Given the right opportunities, ESA's Members are already performing extremely well in the UK.
To give just one example, we will hear later from Ross Hilliard about the remarkably high levels of construction and demolition recycling Shanks is able to achieve in the Netherlands.
The Department of Trade & Industry has correctly identified the environmental sector as a strategic export target for the UK.
To avoid damaging other sectors of the economy and to have a real chance of becoming a beacon of international best practice and environmental know-how, the foundations for real progress in achieving compliance with the Landfill Directive really must be laid in the remainder of the current Parliament.
By the next General Election, this Country really must demonstrably be set on course for compliance with the Landfill Directive.
Subsequent speakers will consider how regulation, effectively targeted economic instruments and political leadership have produced success elsewhere in the EU.
In this Country, however, we are nearly half way through the second Parliament of the present Government which signed the Landfill Directive. Of course the Government has some achievement to its credit.
For example, it has insisted in Best Value Performance Indicators on an output rather than input based definition of recycling, an approach wholly vindicated in the EU Waste Statistics Regulation published at the end of last year.
We have all heard fantastic claims in other countries of 70% and 80% recycling for municipal waste. Often, as I am sure David Davies can explain later today better than I, the reality behind those figures is rather different.
Without reservation, I congratulate the British Government on applying a much more stringent and meaningful output based definition of recycling.
Figures that try to be truthful are essential for securing long-term public engagement.
The sensational but misleading figures used in other countries-and I regret that the Environment Agency has latched on to such a figure for Canberra in this document here-make it more rather than less difficult for people to get a realistic grasp of the connection between what they consume and the environmental impact of their consumption.
So I am certainly not suggesting that the Government has got everything wrong or that there is no work in hand to make things better.
However, as of today, none of the three central drivers under the direct control of the British Government is pointing to the UK's compliance with the Landfill Directive.
First, as of today, regulation is tending to drive waste away from rather than towards the infrastructure needed for compliance with the Directive.
Unless, for example, there is now rapid and significant progress, problems with hazardous waste from July 2004 will make the 'fridge fiasco seem like the most well ordered of vicars' tea parties.
Second, as of today, despite extensive review of the planning system, not one Government Minister has cared to discuss with us how they think the planning system might deliver the one to two thousand items of infrastructure the Environment Agency believes are needed to achieve compliance with the Directive.
As of today, the third central driver under the Government's direct control to providing recycling facilities on the necessary industrial scale-the fiscal incentive of raising the landfill tax to £35 per tonne-will at best not take before the middle of the next Parliament and at worst, will be delayed until the end of the Parliament after the next Parliament.
Having announced that it intends to achieve a Landfill Tax of £35, ESA believes this figure should be reached as soon as possible.
ESA's Members have been superbly successful in delivering for the UK the most cost-effective of waste management systems. For very little money our Members have delivered very respectable environmental outcomes.
The NHS historically delivered superb value for money but has fallen progressively further behind the expectations of those it serves. Similarly, in our sector, the UK is now at risk of falling further behind what EU law will allow and indeed the environmental outcomes the British public expects.
How will we turn this around? With due deference to the powerful intellects who contributed to the Strategy Unit's report, I confidently predict that home composting is not our principal route to national salvation.
We need much better regulation, we need an improved planning system and we need some more money.
On this last point, let me offer a perspective.
Tesco's-just one supermarket chain-has an annual turnover more than four times larger than that of the entire industry represented by ESA. Just one supermarket does more than four times as much business as the entire industry responsible for managing the Nation's commercial, clinical, household, industrial and other waste streams.
The companies we represent are exceptionally sensitive to the needs of industry and the competing claims on the public purse. ESA has been very careful to formulate policies to make the UK a leader rather than a laggard in resource management on a basis we believe to be both economically and environmentally justifiable.
We are delighted, for example, that the Government accepted our advice that increases in the Landfill Tax must be fiscally neutral for British business.
On the municipal waste stream we need to double, to about £1 per person per week, the amount spent on managing the municipal waste stream to achieve required European standards of recovery from this waste stream. This is less than is already being paid in countries like Holland. A study we commissioned from Ernst & Young last summer showed how this money could be raised on a non-regressive basis and without demands on the public purse: in terms of defining public policy, things do not get much better than this!
Although the standard of public debate is not what we would wish it to be, waste is-again-a relatively easy area of public policy to resolve.
The downside for the UK of resolving it is minimal. The upside is potentially significant improvements to environmental sustainability, economic opportunity and international reputation.
To turn the trend from being a laggard into starting to lead, the Government must act: now. Thank you. 
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