There is a significant risk that local authorities in England will fail to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste sent to landfill by enough for the UK to meet EU targets, according to a report by Parliament?s spending watchdog. The Government intends to penalise local authorities who fail to make their share of the required reductions under Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) – a scheme introduced by Government to help Local Authorities comply with meeting their obligations under the EU Landfill Directive.
Jump to downloadsFailure to meet the national targets could also result in the EU issuing fines against the UK Government, which currently sends a higher proportion of municipal waste to landfill (75 per cent) than most other EU countries. These fines could also be later passed on to the local authorities in addition to the scheme penalties mentioned above.
Meeting the targets will require an increase in recycling and in the number of waste treatment plants, but there have been difficulties in both of these areas. To improve the prospects of achieving the targets, the Department should focus on helping the 25 authorities responsible for half of all municipal waste sent to landfill and on ensuring data used for the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme are more accurate and up to date.
Meeting the EU targets requires a reduction of at least 3.5 million tonnes of biodegradable waste sent to landfill by 2010, and a further 3.7 million tonnes by 2013. Today?s report from the National Audit Office estimates that, if no further action is taken beyond that already planned, local authorities will miss the 2010 target by approximately 270,000 tonnes (equivalent to the waste produced by some 225,000 households) and the 2013 target by almost 1.4 million tonnes (equivalent to the waste of some 1.2 million households). Exceeding Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme allowance allocations in 2010 could lead to local authorities receiving Scheme penalties totalling ?40 million a year, rising to ?205 million a year for exceeding allowance allocations in 2013.
Failure to meet the Landfill Directive targets could also result in substantial fines imposed on the UK Government by the EU.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has provided local authorities with ?336 million between 2002-03 and 2005-06 to encourage recycling and composting. However, the growth of recycling, from 11 per cent of household waste in 2000-01 to 23 per cent in 2004-05, has been outweighed by an increase in the amount of waste being produced. The Department forecasts that a recycling figure of approximately 40 per cent will be needed to meet EU targets, but the NAO study suggests this will be difficult to achieve.
Difficulties in securing both funding and planning permission have contributed to delays in building new waste treatment plants. The Department should focus on helping the 25 waste disposal authorities sending the largest amounts of biodegradable municipal waste to landfill to develop new treatment facilities, including plants to convert waste to energy. The Department should also help promote the benefits of alternative waste disposal methods to the public, to address concerns over new plants and increase take-up of improved forms of collection, as well as encouraging increased recycling and composting.
To encourage local authorities to improve their performance, the Department has confirmed that it will impose penalties on authorities breaching their allowances under the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme.
Meeting the EU targets for reducing landfill will be a tough challenge but there is much that can still be done if action is taken now. Reducing the amount of waste going to landfill requires both new treatment plants and a greater use of recycling, and no one should be in any doubt of the scale of the challenge involved. The weight of evidence shows that disposing of biodegradable waste in landfill sites is harmful to the environment, and if we are to substantially reduce our reliance on landfill then there really is no time to waste?
Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office
Downloads
- 05061177es.pdf (.pdf — 260 KB)
- 05061177.pdf (.pdf — 1 MB)
- 05061177_survey.pdf (.pdf — 1 MB)
Publication details
- ISBN: 010294234X [Buy a hard copy of this report]
- HC: 1177 2005-2006
