Letter from Biffa Waste Services Ltd to
the Rt Hon Paul Boateng, MP, Financial Secretary, HM Treasury
24 July 2001
I recently copied you in on a letter to Michael
Meacher regarding the looming crisis in meeting the cost of managing
end life fridges utilising zero emissions technologies after 1
January 2002. It is almost certain that the supply chain will
refuse any cost liability for this given past similar responses
in relation to accepting cost burdens arising from so called "orphan"
products, etc.
In thinking about this matter in more depth
it occurred to me that a simple option exists whereby unnecessary
bureaucratic and audit procedures could be avoided. If the majority
of domestic fridges end up as a liability on Waste Collection
Authorities after 1 January—either fly tipped or delivered
to civic amenity sites—this will result in local government
asking for special precept consideration for an expected £60
millin to £70 million per annum management cost split between
over 400 separate bodies (with additional complications caused
by Welsh and Scottish devolution). Treasury can either grant such
a precept or the Government may be embarrassed if local government
has to cut back its budgetary expenditure parri passu in
more sensitive areas such as education, etc. An alternative approach
might be for companies like us to offer a free service to local
authorities the length and breadth of the UK and for us to negotiate
a central rate with yourselves or DEFRA which embraces the collection,
destruction and end life management of scrap materials on an inclusive
basis. The latter is much easier to manage and we would be more
than happy to comply with the necessary centralised audit requirements.
This is not an offer to solve the Government's
compliance problems free of charge—the sting in the tail
is that we would ask for a pound for pound reduction against the
total cost of fridge management (based on the negotiated national
rate) as an offset against the (approximately) £75 million
we raise in annual landfill taxes. Is this a suggestion on which
we could develop some dialogue?
I have copied this to Michael Meacher and the
Local Government Association for information.
| 
