Examination of witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 1998
MR BRYAN
BATEMAN, MR
ALAN MCKENDRICK
and MR JOHN
GOODALL
440. Can I ask what your opinion is of the
waste hierarchy and how confident we should be that composting
occupies an appropriate position within it?
(Mr Walker) Perhaps I could first just define
what I mean by sustainable very briefly before answering the question.
I think the view of the Composting Association sustainable waste
management must be a policy which minimises the environmental
impact of waste collection, disposal and recovery whilst being
reasonable within a country;s overall macroeconomic position,
and I think that the trouble is that sustainability is probably
easier to define in terms of what it is not rather than what it
is. If I could just give you a very brief example, Mr Chairman,
recently I was in Portugal and Portugal has recently produced
an entirely new waste management strategy in 18 months which relies
almost entirely on European Union funding. Now the problem I think
with the Portuguese strategy is that they are now imposing costs
for waste collection disposal on individual householders which
are actually greater than the entire cost of local government
services for the rest of the services, and I think that that is
actually unsustainable because I think that the problem is that
first of all people will not accept it and secondly I think therefore
that they will not achieve their strategy. I think that it is
important that any waste management policy, whether it is in the
United Kingdom or anywhere else, should actually be overall affordable.
I appreciate that ultimately that may not in fact lead to the
nirvana that some people may expect for waste management currently,
but certainly local authorities capping it is very difficult to
achieve anything other than very small steps. The second question
asked about the waste hierarchy. I think that generally the waste
hierarchy is acceptable, but I think that the important thing,
certainly from our point of view, is to bear in mind that you
should consider all waste management situations on a case by case
basis. You cannot use life cycle analysis and come to a conclusion
that energy incineration without energy recovery is better than
composting or composting is better than that. I think that you
have to look at the overall life cycle analysis of it. The other
point that I would just like to make is that if you take the logic
of the landfill tax to its logical conclusion, then there should
be an equal levy on incineration without energy recovery that
there is on landfill.
441. Can I just press you a bit further
on that. Studies have been done about the relative impact of composting
versus landfill which itself in a proper engineered way creates
methane and thus a valuable energy, some would say.
(Mr Walker) There have been a limited number of
studies in this country, but most of the studies have actually
been done in America on landfill versus composting by the Environmental
Protection Agency, which I think is probably ten years ahead of
our agency, and they found that even in the most sanitary landfills
they only captured up to 70 per cent of the methane so that 30
per cent of the methane is in fact escaping from the most sanitary
ones and almost by definition therefore in the less sanitary landfills
more methane than that is actually escaping from the process.
However, in a properly managed composting operation there are
no anaerobic pockets and therefore there is no methane production.
(Mr Middlemass) Can I just follow that point up
by going back to the waste hierarchy, Mr Chairman. Obviously the
higher you go up the waste hierarchy the less likelihood there
is of there being environmental impact from composting. One of
the things that the Community Composting Network perceives is
that home composting and community composting keeps organic waste
out of the waste stream and perhaps it should be acknowledged
not as recycling but as reduction itself if you perceive reduction
from that point of view. The other thingand this follows
up what Michael Walker has saidis that composting should
be perceived as something where you separate out organic waste
from other forms of domestic waste and only that should be called
composting whereas so-called dirty composting where you actually
compost a mixture of household waste should not be perceived as
composting, so separation should be higher up in the waste hierarchy.
442. Could I just ask briefly, Mr Chairman,
what percentage terms are going into this? Most people in their
back gardens do their own composting anyway, so what percentage
are you looking for? How much do you think actual garden waste
is going to go into disposal?
(Mr Middlemass) One of the things about making
waste work, Mr Chairman, is that it acknowledges the contributions
of all scales so that there is a role for centralised composting
and there is a role for smaller scale schemes. I think that the
current amount of people composting at home and composting at
community level is not as high as it could be. The Government
have set a target of 40 per cent of households with gardens to
compost at home and by 2000 I think that that is an achievable
figure. I think that it could be higher.
Chairman
443. You talk about well run composting.
Have you any idea how many are well run?
(Mr Walker) In the state of composting in the
United Kingdom, Mr Chairman, which is a survey that the Composting
Association has just completed, we discovered that there are now
60 currently operating composting sites in the United Kingdom,
which is a 500 per cent increase since 1992, and only three of
the respondents from the survey have actually shut down between
1992 and 1997 because of operational problems and the only other
operating ones reported problems either with the Environment Agency
or with members of the public. I would not say, however, that
that necessarily means that they are being operated as well perhaps
as some of them could be because I think that there is a lack
of information currently on how to run composting sites in the
United Kingdom.
444. I was not really interested particularly
in local authority and other ones that are run on a reasonable
scale. I am really much more interested in everybody's back garden
where I suspect that a lot of them do not avoid gas emission and
leachate escape. Have you any idea how good individual households
are?
(Mr Walker) I think that that is a figure that
it would be very difficult to estimate. I think that there has
been some research in Sweden on the efficiency of home composting
and I think that the research found that the majority of people
who are composting at home understood the composting process but
it identified an on going need for continuing public education,
which I think is the same for the local authority schemes as well
as bins which are sold by garden centres. There is a need to explain
the composting process.
(Mr Middlemass) I think that that is one of the
dangers of the local authority home composting projects. They
are very good at distributing bins to people, but they are less
good at educating people how to use them correctly so that there
may have been an increase in the percentage of bad home composting
as a result of recent local authority schemes. That is a thing
that we are concerned about therefore. Perhaps the community sector
is better placed to educate people how to compost at home than
the local authorities themselves.
Mrs Ellman
445. I would like just to explore the potential
for increasing composting. Would you like to say how you would
go about increasing the level of composting and who should be
doing that?
(Mr Walker) Would you like centralised composting
or home composting or both?
446. I think both.
(Mr Walker) Certainly in terms of home composting
75 per cent of the best 25 schemes or the best recycling rates
for local authorities in the United Kingdom have been achieved
by local authorities who have a centralised composting operation.
I think that that shows what can be achieved by composting. That
is not however, to under-estimate the problems that any other
local authorities have in trying to set up composting operations,
and they fall into two areas. The first is economics. The problem
is that the economics of composting are that it is quite expensive
to set up a composting operation and the withdrawal of supplementary
credit approvals has in the opinion of the Composting Association
significantly slowed down the growth of composting in recent years.
Between 1992 and 1995 the most substantial growth in composting
operations took placeand that was when supplementary credit
approvals were available for compostand since 1996 when
supplementary credit approvals were withdrawn from composting
operations the slow down in terms of new sites has been very significant.
The problem of the economics of composting is that you can set
up a well managed composting operation for about £20 a tonne
but unfortunately most landfill prices are still slightly less
than £20 a tonne so it is not economically advantageous for
the private sector or for local authorities to set up a composting
operation. Therefore, in our evidence, Mr Chairman, we have given
some ideas of how the capital costs of composting sites can be
met. The other problem with composting is actually collecting
waste from the kerbside. Now a lot of the figures that you see
quoted by the Environment Agency and by the Department of the
Environment, Transport and the Regions is that source aggregation
schemes, as we call them, separate collections, often say that
it costs about £80 a tonne, and that is correct if it is
a separate collection. What has worked most successfully in the
schemes in the United Kingdom and in Sweden is where you integrate
the collection of organic material one week with residual waste
in the other week so that you have what is known as an integrated
alternate weekly collection. Also, of course, that is a changing
culture for the United Kingdom, but it is something which has
worked very well in the Netherlands in Germany.
Chairman
447. I am sorry, can you just explain that
a bit more simply?
(Mr Walker) I am sorry, yes, Mr Chairman, the
terminology is very difficult. In the United Kingdom we have a
culture in the recycling industry where you have separate collections
for different feedstocks, for example, newspaper would be collected
in a blue bin or plastic bag and you would collect your existing
refuse, whether it is in a wheel bin or in a dustbin, on a weekly
basis. Now the problem with separate collections is that they
are very expensive so therefore almost by definition if you have
two collections a week for refuse instead of one the cost is twice
as much. In order to get round this problem the concept of alternate
weekly collections has been introduced into a number of authorities
in this country and also broadly in the rest of Europe where in
the first week in the wheel bin you collect your refuse and in
the second week you would collect the organic material, the garden
waste, the kitchen organics, and thereby you actually have the
existing collection cost. The extra cost, of course, is a one
off cost to pay for the second wheel bin or however you collect
your organic waste.
Christine Butler
448. But in a warm summer that would mean
that it would be waiting in an enclosed bag for two weeks?
(Mr Walker) Yes, that is a very good point. As
a Composting Association we would not recommend the use of a plastic
bag for alternate collections. We would recommend that you use
a wheel bin. There have been a lot of studies that have been done
in the United Kingdom of people who are concerned over the life
cycle of maggots and flies to examine whether or not there is
a problem with that and all of the evidence strongly suggests
that there is no problem alternate weekly collections and they
have proven very popular in a number of authorities in the country.
Chairman
449. Can you give us one example?
(Mr Walker) The most successful scheme in England
is one that is operated by what is now known as North Lincolnshire
Council which was formerly Scunthorpe Borough Council, and that
actually has achieved a recycling rate in the area where they
introduced the twin bin collection of over 40 per cent, which
I think is actually the highest recycling rate that I am aware
of in the United Kingdom at the present time.
(Mr Middlemass) I reiterate, Mr Chairman, on the
use of plastic bins the risk of problems from organic waste is
taken away by using plastic bins, as Michael Walker said.
Mrs Ellman
450. What about community composting?
(Mr Middlemass) I outlined earlier the range of
benefits of composting at a smaller level and I think that that
needs to be got across to people better in government education,
that is, that composting is not just about making compost, it
is also about recycling and community activity on the other hand.
The previous group of people here were talking about landfill
tax and again we would agree that the landfill tax could be a
lot higher, and that could promote more community composting.
However, the particular issue that we are in discussion about
with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
at the moment is to do with the waste management regulations which
are proving prohibitive to community composting. Most community
composting, to be able either to sell community compost, have
to apply for a licence which costs £700 and that is far too
high for most small scale schemes and we are currently in negotiation
with the Department to revise those regulations. I would certainly
like to make the point here, Mr Chairman, that it is important
that those benefit community composting if it is to be continued.
451. Targets have been set down in Making
Waste Work. Do you think that those are achievable and what changes
do we need to make them so?
(Mr Middlemass) I will mention the home composting
targets that I mentioned earlier and I will let Michael Walker
talk about the other two targets. The target in Making Waste Work
is 40 per cent of households with a garden to do home compost
by 2000 and, as I said earlier, I think that that is achievable,
particularly if the community sector takes more of a role in getting
people to use the home compost bins that are delivered to them
by local authorities because at the present time there may well
be 40 per cent of households with home composters but it is debatable
whether they are actually used.
Christine Butler
452. You said that if composting was not
done properly there would be emissions. Can you tell us whether
you have an estimate of the methane that might be produced from
inefficient composting schemes?
(Mr Walker) From centralised sites or in back
gardens?
453. Anything that you have figures on?
(Mr Walker) Certainly on a centralised scale,
again, the only research that I am aware of has been carried out
in America and that found in respect of most of their composting
sitesand obviously it is very difficult because they have
a lot more than we dothey found that 90 per cent of the
composting sites in the USA were not emitting methane.
454. And of those that were?you see,
I am just trying to compare this with other types of waste disposal
options and particularly what would happen to the degradables
and landfill?
(Mr Walker) Certainly currently it is true to
say that landfill does not release carbon dioxide, but in the
opinion of Dr Jane Gilbert, who is the technical research director
of the Composting Association, landfill sites which actually flare
off methane certainly probably are producing more carbon dioxide
than a composting site and they are certainly producing more methane.
Therefore, it is more of a case by case basis rather than comparing
good and bad.
455. What about the smell and the dust and
immediate atmosphere problems that these stations cause to residential
areas?
(Mr Walker) The Composting Association is obviously
aware of people's concerns about composting sites because they
are commonly perceived as waste facilities rather than recycling
facilities and there are two particular concerns which we have
identified. The first is odours and the second is what we call
bioaerosols, which are micropollutants. In terms of odours it
is true to say that a well managed composting site will produce
a mild odour. Anybody who would say that composting does not smell
is not frankly telling the truth. However, composting sites produce
a very mild odour which is not detectable within about 150 metres
of the site and
(? ... ?) composting sites can produce an odour within
a kilometre of the nearest property, and I have been in America
where even more composting sites smell at five kilometres, and
I would not disguise that. One of the things that the Composting
Association is doing to address that issue at the present time,
as I mentioned earlier, Mr Chairman, is to produce a guidance
for compost site operators in the United Kingdom about how to
run a well managed composting site. What we would like to encourage
is for the Environment Agency to write into composting site operator
licences those as conditions of how to run composting sites so
that in other words you would have a set of conditions to monitor
against.
456. So you think the regulations that will
be coming from the Environment Agency would be better, but do
you think this would be better in terms of not just the efficiency
of the composting but also in terms of the effectiveness and the
commercial side and that it would be beneficial to the industry
if we were to work that way rather than leave matters to the planning
regime at local authority level which is trying to mitigate disasters?
(Mr Walker) Yes, I think that that is a very good
point. I think PPG 23 or PPG 10, as it will become, very clearly
distinguishes between what is a planning consideration and what
is a waste licensing consideration.
457. Has there been a comparison in the
best environmental option as between the large scale enclosed
composting scheme such as we have in continental Europe and open
composting linked with home composting here, taking into consideration
travel, journey times and what that might mean as well?
(Mr Walker) There has been a European Union report,
Mr Chairman, and I can give the reference to the Committee if
you would like, which does look at that. However, the main flaw
with that report is the fact that it assumes no beneficial use
for the end material of the compost which actually therefore comes
out against large centralised composting schemes. If you were
actually able to put in some value for the compostnot a
monetary value but an environmental valuethen that does
actually fundamentally change the economics of it and that has
actually been acknowledged now by other people who have written
the report. Again, however, there is insufficient research actually
to answer your question definitively.
(Mr Middlemass) Mr Chairman, perhaps I can just
follow up what Michael Walker has said in terms of your fears
about environmental effects from composting. This will inevitably
be reduced the smaller the scale of the compost. Also, as you
go up the hierarchy towards community and home composting the
distance between the point at which the waste is produced and
then dealt with is reduced and that reduces the need for unnecessary
transport.
Chairman
458. You did tell us about the question
of the supplementary credit approvals. Do you have anything at
all to add on that?
(Mr Walker) If I may just give you an example
of a bad practice in the first instance, there was a situation
in Leicestershire where both Leicester City Council and Leicestershire
County Council were granted supplementary credit approval for
composting sites and material recycling facilities, and both the
composting site and the material recycling facilities were constructed
within five miles of each other. Now that, I think, is a very
bad example of how supplementary credit approval is handled because
there is no economic justification or any other justification
for having four sites so closely together. However, supplementary
credit approvals were the major funding course for composting
sites. If supplementary credit approvals could be brought back
specifically for composting what I would like to suggest is what
would be a two stage process. That would be that in the first
instance an application would be made jointly perhaps to a committee
of the Department of the Environment and the Environment Agency
which would consider the need for a composting site in that particular
locality and would approve it in principle, but that a local authority
did not then have to spend that allocation in 12 months because
obviously getting planning permission and actually setting up
a composting site for most waste recovery is very difficult within
12 months and I think they should then be given two years actually
to achieve then and then when they have actually got planning
permission and are in a position to go ahead with it they can
make a second stage application to the Department of the Environment,
Transport and the Regions and to the Environment Agency for the
release of those funds. I think that there would be an advantage
to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
in that, which is that in previous years there was a significant
underspend of supplementary credit approvals for recycling because
it was very difficult for local authorities actually to spend
their money. Therefore, the Department of the Environment, Transport
and the Regions would actually be able to see a more efficient
use of their funds and they would also have a much better infrastructure
set up in the country.
Dr Whitehead
459. I note that you would also like to
get your hands on the landfill tax?
(Mr Walker) Yes.
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