UK’s Landfill Directive targets at risk, warn local authority waste chiefs
Heads of local authority waste departments across the country are calling for the Government to conduct an urgent review of emerging waste trends which reveal a potential risk to the UK’s ability to meet its 2020 Landfill Directive targets.
The call comes from the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) which warns in a letter sent yesterday to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson, that the Government could be using out of date statistics to make key waste policy and investment decisions which could leave the country unable to avoid potentially crippling landfill fines in the future.
Steve Kent, President of ADEPT and the Strategic Advisor at Cheshire West and Chester Council said:
“Current data is showing that more waste is being collected by local authorities across the country, recycling rates are flattening and residual waste levels are on the rise.
“Those factors, combined with a gap in the amount of waste treatment capacity coming on stream in the next few years should be ringing alarm bells in Whitehall, that the UK’s strategy to stop waste being sent to landfill might be in danger.
“In our view, the Government is relying on trends in household waste that have been recorded during the most difficult economic conditions since the war. But there is now growing evidence that those trends are simply a medium term adjustment and that as the country starts to return to growth and as our population continues to increase, the UK will simply be ill prepared to manage its waste properly.
“ADEPT is not convinced that Defra has given these latest trends proper consideration when it comes to assessing the country’s future waste treatment needs, in a situation where it is already not certain that 2020 requirements will be met.
“That is why we are calling on the Government to review the situation urgently to provide re-assurance that the UK can meet its European Landfill Directive targets in seven years time.”
ADEPT’s concerns come just a month after the organisation wrote to Defra expressing its fears that the department’s recent decision to withdraw Waste Infrastructure Credits from 3 residual waste projects that had featured in the National Infrastructure Plan would damage the confidence of investors in the waste sector and on the UK’s wider reputation for delivering new infrastructure. The most recent letter goes further and says that this decision was also short-sighted in relation to the UK’s waste policy objectives.
Mr Kent said: “Of the remaining 29 waste infrastructure projects supported by Defra there are risks associated with delivery of the 16 plants that are not yet fully operational. “Even if this capacity is delivered there should be plans for additional facilities to achieve further, more challenging targets beyond 2020, bearing in mind the EU review of the waste framework directive (which may lead to the introduction of new targets) and the vision set out in the Government Waste Policy Review of a ‘zero waste economy’.
The letter also points to an underlying reduction in recycling rates and says there are dangers in assuming that recycling is set to continue to increase at the rates experienced in recent years.
“The latest statistics cast doubt on whether a 50% recycling and composting rate is achievable across all local authorities in England when the reductionin funding available to local authorities may lead to waste re-use, reduction and recycling schemes being delayed or cancelled.”