APPENDIX 5
Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
Dirk Hazell, Chief Executive, Environmental Services Association
(ESA)
ESA is grateful for the opportunity to comment
on the Government's official response to the Environmental Audit
Committee's Report. We are pleased that the Inquiry recognised
many of the reasons for the Government's lack of progress in complying
with EU waste management legislation.
The Government's responses to the EAC and the
Strategy Unit Reports do not suggest that in the immediate future
progress will be more rapid. Key decisions have been delayed until
the next Parliament and it seems likely that the UK will struggle
to meet the basic requirements of the Landfill Directive, let
alone achieve world leading levels of recycling and recovery.
RECOMMENDATIONS 2
AND 3: WASTE
MINIMISATION
Action to target waste growth must be co-ordinated
with resource management and integrated product policy. Growth
in waste should be reduced, not by destroying people's aspirations
to consume, but by providing products that are less demanding
of the world's resources.
We do not detect a strategic approach to improving
resource efficiency in the Government's response. Given all that
the Select Committee has said over the years and the comment of
entities like ESA, it is curious that the Government made no reference
to the European Commission's Communication on a Thematic Strategy
on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste and that, four months
after its publication, DEFRA has only just begun to explore convening
a meeting of experts to discuss the UK's position and contribution
to the Communication.
RECOMMENDATIONS 4,
6, 15 AND 16: COMPLIANCE
WITH THE
LANDFILL DIRECTIVE
AND WASTE
STRATEGY 2000
The Government has announced a package of new
measures to improve progress on waste. ESA supports DEFRA's Waste
Implementation Programme (WIP) and has offered practical support
in the form of staff secondments from industry to the WIP team.
However, ESA does not believe that the new measures,
together with those contained in Waste Strategy 2000, will provide
a framework for achieving compliance with the UK's legal obligations
resulting from the Landfill Directive.
The three main drivers under the Government's
direct control—regulation, planning and funding of household
waste—still do not point either now or in the foreseeable
future to the UK complying with the requirements of the Landfill
Directive. For example the Landfill Tax might only reach £35
per tonne in 2011 and there continues to be an annual shortfall
of £1 billion in funding for the municipal waste stream that
international experience shows will be necessary.
We have suggested that the Government's response
to the report by the Strategy Unit is in part to seek to shift
political risk and responsibility away from central Government
and onto local authorities and WRAP.
RECOMMENDATION 5:
RECYCLING TARGETS
Waste is a distress purchase: it flows to the
cheapest available legal solution which in the UK is invariably
landfill. Without adequate drivers in place, most local authorities
have not achieved high recycling/recovery levels and many are
still operating at very low levels.
ESA's members want to be enabled to transform
recycling levels in the UK. We welcome the setting of challenging
output-based targets which represent the optimum environmental
solution.
Unfortunately, as highlighted in our written
evidence to the Committee, international comparisons are made
difficult by other countries using an input-based definition of
recycling and/or including in the definition of municipal waste
other waste streams which are easier to recycle. We have always
supported the Government's relatively rigorous approach in adopting
an output-based definition of recycling, and this has been vindicated
by the EU Waste Statistics Regulation.
Whilst local authorities and the Government
will ultimately determine the ratio of recovery to recycling solutions,
international experience does suggest that in order to meet landfill
diversion targets, the UK will be required to extract significantly
more energy from waste.
RECOMMENDATION 8:
INDUSTRIAL AND
COMMERCIAL RECYCLING
The lack of comprehensive and consistent data
continues to be a problem. One of ESA's members—Biffa—has,
on its own initiative, tried to systematically improve the UK's
data on waste. Biffa has invested £8 million in seeking to
map the resource flows in and out of the United Kingdom, covering
a range of sectors such as chemicals and food supply. ESA was
surprised and disappointed that DEFRA does not appear to see the
relevance in continuing this programme.
RECOMMENDATION 9:
DEFINITION OF
WASTE
The definition of waste is a matter for public
policy based on an assessment of the risk to the environment and
human health. However, the existing framework has achieved a dramatic
reduction in the environmental impact of managing waste in the
EU over the past 20 years. Any proposals to amend or reinterpret
the definition must demonstrate that there will be no adverse
impact on human health or environmental quality.
RECOMMENDATIONS 10
AND 11: LANDFILL
TAX AND
FISCAL INSTRUMENTS
As the Government's response recognises, the
Landfill Tax will only begin to impact when it reaches a rate
of around £35 per tonne: this is when other forms of waste
management such as recycling will become commercially viable.
Waste producers and managers do need advance warning of rises
in the Landfill Tax. However, the Government's announcement on
the Landfill Tax and its response to the Select Committee fail
to provide a clear timetable for increases or even signal when
it is likely to reach £35. This uncertainty is a further
avoidable obstacle to enabling the waste management industry to
plan its investment programme.
We note also that the Government's response
refers to economic analyses and modelling regarding the Landfill
Tax and diversion of waste from landfill. Despite repeated requests
from ESA, the Government has consistently failed to make this
information publicly available and perhaps the Committee might
wish to consider pursuing this.
RECOMMENDATION 12:
HEALTH EFFECTS
The Government rightly recognises that there
is no zero-risk waste management solution. However, modern waste
management processes have decreased risk substantially over the
past decade and ESA has for some time supported the principle
of an independent review to communicate this improvement.
Ultimately, elected officials will determine
the mix of waste management solutions that will be required to
achieve the UK's compliance with EU law. At the moment, the UK
extracts energy from far less waste than comparable EU member
states such as Germany and France.
RECOMMENDATION 13:
LANDFILL TAX
CREDIT SCHEME
The Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) provided
a useful and cost-effective resource for research into sustainable
waste management practices and we were disappointed that the Government
terminated this source of funding. Diversion of LTCS receipts
into central government spending provides only 10% of the additional
funding required to comply with the Landfill Directive insofar
as it relates to municipal waste.
ESA has consistently advised the Government
that, rather than rely on the inadequate funding provided by LTCS,
the polluter pays principle should be applied to funding of the
municipal waste stream with piloting of direct charging.
RECOMMENDATION 14:
WRAP
ESA is founder member of WRAP. The Government
should secure funding for WRAP's original remit for the medium
to long term.
However, we would have liked the Government
to explain how it would ensure that an expansion in WRAP's responsibilities
would not constrain its core work of delivering more stable and
efficient markets for recycled materials and products.
RECOMMENDATION 17:
IMPLEMENTATION OF
EU LEGISLATION
Despite the well-documented problems regarding
implementation of the Ozone Depleting Substances Regulation and
the Landfill Directive, we have seen no noteworthy improvement
in the implementation of EU legislation by DEFRA. For example,
this summer the Government has been criticised for failing to
communicate effectively to local authorities and others that a
ban on the sale, storage and use of creosote wood treatment products
would enter into force from 30 June 2003 or that the 1991 Plant
Protection Productions would ban 81 garden pesticide products
for use from December 2003.
More significantly, the co-disposal of hazardous
and non-hazardous waste in a landfill site will end in July 2004.
Despite repeated requests from ESA, the Government has not yet
put in place the framework required to enable investment in the
infrastructure to manage hazardous waste post-July 2004. We are
very concerned about a gap between the end of co-disposal and
a requirement to pre-treat hazardous waste to the EU's specified
waste acceptance criteria (WAC) before management in landfill.
However, nine months after they appeared in the EU's Official
Journal, the Government has still not indicated how the WAC will
be applied, despite the then Minister for the Environment, the
Rt. Hon Michael Meacher MP commenting in July 2002 that the absence
of WAC "makes it very difficult for industry to have the
confidence to make expensive investment in new facilities that
may be required".
ESA invites the Committee to consider requesting
an annual report from DEFRA outlining the EU Regulations/Directives
which need to be implemented in the UK and explaining what DEFRA
is doing to ensure successful implementation.
RECOMMENDATION 18:
PLANNING SYSTEM
ESA has remained disappointed by the Government's
lack of effective action to improve the speed and certainty for
waste management planning applications. Parliamentary written
questions tabled by Mr Bill O'Brien MP (for example 26 June 2003)
reveal that the Government does not even centrally collect information
on the additional waste management planning capacity that is granted
each year.
We hope that the review of PPG10 will add value
but we would like to see the Government taking a much more strategic
approach to waste planning. This could include, for example, strategic
planning zones. ESA will publish shortly planning guidelines setting
out recommendations on key planning issues such as BPEO and "need",
and the reforms that need to occur to allow the development of
infrastructure required to comply with the Landfill Directive.
RECOMMENDATION 19:
DEFRA RESOURCES
We welcome the additional resources that have
been made available to DEFRA for the Waste Implementation team.
However, the Government's response does not indicate that additional
resources have been made available across the waste function within
DEFRA. For example, there appears to be no new additional support
to assist officials to prepare more timely technical guidance
for the Environment Agency on key pieces of legislation, or any
assurance that officials will be able to benefit from greater
internal legal support. In this context we hope that DEFRA pursues
much more vigorously ESA's offer to provide industry secondments.
It is widely recognised that DEFRA is required
to make a cultural shift. In particular it could learn from other
Government Departments, such as the DTI and the Treasury, which
engage more effectively with the private sector. It is not clear
from the Government's response how DEFRA intends to achieve this.
RECOMMENDATIONS 20,
21 AND 22 ENVIRONMENT
AGENCY
An adequately resourced and focused regulator
is vital if waste is to flow to regulated infrastructure. We welcome
the Government's comments regarding the fly tipping abatement
task force and hope that a funding commitment can be given soon.
September 2003
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