Briefings

Waste and Emissions Trading Bill

The Waste and Emissions Bill (WETB) is proceeding through Parliament and aims to limit the amount of biodegradable municipal waste that can be landfilled by waste disposal authorities by setting quotas. If a waste disposal authority landfills less than the quota it is able to trade its spare capacity with a waste disposal authority. Whilst the WETB does provide a framework for trading across the UK, the Welsh Assembly has indicated that it will not allow trading. The WETB allows also a waste disposal authority to require a waste collection authority to separate specific waste streams. Regulations will implement many of the measures in the Bill through the devolved administrations.

ESA believes the Bill should:

• set out the Government's commitment to achieve compliance with the Landfill Directive in 2016 without using the available 4 year derogation;
• connect in a single, coordinated strategy the landfill diversion targets of the Landfill, End of Life Vehicles and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directives; and
• prevent local authorities borrow from the landfill allowances of proceeding years.

Achieving Compliance with the Landfill Directive
The Landfill Directive places a legal requirement on the UK to send less biodegradable municipal waste to landfill. On current trends (3% waste growth per annum and 1.5% per annum increase in recovery of biodegradable waste) and even using the four-year derogation, the UK would fail to meet the Landfill Directive's biodegradable municipal waste diversion targets with a shortfall of almost 4 million tonnes in 2010 and nearly 12 million tonnes in 2020. (This assumes UK produced 29m tonnes of municipal waste in 1995 of which 63% was biodegradable).

* Percentage of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill in 1995

In April 2003, the European Commission placed the UK bottom of EU in terms of implementing EU environmental Directives: UK implementation rate is 85% and EU average is 94.6%. France is 92%, Germany 95%, Denmark 98.9% and Sweden 99.43%.

Achieving Compliance with the Landfill Directive in 2016
Unlike comparable EU Member States such as France and Germany, the UK has available a four year derogation and could choose to achieve compliance with the Landfill Directive in 2020 rather than 2016. ESA believes that the UK should take a position of environmental leadership and aim to comply by 2016 by investing the necessary additional resources, enhancing regulatory certainty and improving the speed of the planning process. If the UK continues to be a laggard in implementing environmental legislation there could be further crises along the lines of management of end-of-life fridges. According to the European Environment Agency, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands already comply with the 2016 Biodegradable Municipal Waste diversion targets of the Landfill Directive.

Borrowing should not be allowed
ESA supports the principle of Local Authorities trading allowances to provide flexibility in meeting targets. However, the Bill also allows a waste disposal authority to borrow additional capacity to landfill from the landfill allocations of subsequent years, except for target years. This may mean that decisions and investment in technologies necessary to enable the UK to comply with the Landfill Directive might be deferred. Even with statutory recycling targets if municipal waste continues to grow at 3% per annum a waste disposal authority could feasibly landfill similar quantities of BMW in 2008 as it did in 2003 by borrowing allowances from subsequent years. Perversely, borrowing could reduce significantly the incentive for local authorities to trade.

Full Funding of Landfill Directive
Based on the experience of countries such as the Netherlands the United Kingdom will need to invest an additional £1 billion per annum to deliver on the BMW diversion requirements of the Landfill Directive. The WETB does not make available any additional funding.

Connecting European Union Directives
The Landfill, Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment and End of Life Vehicles Directives each set targets for waste to be diverted from landfill. The Government has missed an opportunity to use the WETB Bill to connect these targets in a single, coordinated strategy. The Government must put in place a secure regulatory framework to ensure that investment in new processes and technologies to comply with these Directives stays in Britain and does not flow to other European Union countries: for example, end of life fridges were sent to Germany for treatment.

Environmentally Justifiable
The Regulations accompanying the WETB must prevent misleading declarations on environmental performance. For example, in Edmonton, Canada waste is treated biologically and classified as "composting" even though the "compost" is of insufficient quality to be returned to land for productive use as compost and is instead simply sent to landfill.

August 2003