Memorandum from the Environmental Services
Association
The Environmental Services Association (ESA)
welcomes the opportunity to comment to the Environmental Audit
Committee's Inquiry into Waste Strategy 2000. ESA is the sectoral
trade association for the UK's waste and secondary resource management
industry, which contributes more than £5 billion annually
to the UK economy. To return more of the materials and energy
in waste to the productive economy as required by Waste Strategy
2000 and EU law, our Members are in principle willing to invest
up to £1 billion per year in infrastructure.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
— waste management policy in the UK
is less ambitious than in comparable EU Member States;
— the Government has failed to create
the necessary conditions or put in place a framework to deliver
Waste Strategy 2000 in order to comply with the Landfill Directive.
The deed has been to do as little as possible for as long as possible-going
to, and on occasion falling over, the very edge of compliance
with EU law-and is incompatible with the rhetorical word of environmental
enhancement;
— timely implementation and subsequent
regulation of EU law is essential to provide the certainty that
ESA's Members need to make the investment in new waste management
infrastructure to deliver Waste Strategy 2000;
— like other waste streams, municipal
waste management should be fully funded on a basis consistent
with the polluter pays principle. ESA again suggests that the
Government pilot a system of direct charging for household waste;
— waste management should not be an
unduly complex area of public policy. The drivers and instruments
for achieving substantive progress are obvious and straightforward.
In the context of the Government's rhetoric, ESA cannot understand
the Government's hesitation in applying them.
Measuring the success of Waste Strategy 2000
1. The success of Waste Strategy 2000 can
be measured according to whether it has:
(a) improved the UK's environmental performance
to levels seen in comparable EU Member States;
(b) made progress against targets;
(c) provided the certainty to underpin investment;
(d) delivered increased waste awareness;
and
(e) strengthened partnerships.
A. IMPROVED ENVIRONMENTAL
PERFORMANCE
2. ESA welcomed the aspirations of Waste
Strategy 2000. ESA's Members want to build the future of the waste
management industry not in managing increasing quantities of waste
but in returning to the productive economy more of the material
and energy contained in waste.
3. We have consistently advised the Government
that Waste Strategy 2000 failed to put in place the necessary
framework to enable the delivery of its own targets and, therefore,
the UK's compliance with EU law.
4. For the waste management sector, the
EU rather than the UK Government continues to act as the primary
driver for change. Through the Sixth Environmental Action Programme
and the resulting Thematic Strategies, the EU is addressing systematically
the environmental challenges caused by waste production and society's
consumption of resources.
5. The Government as a single entity must
act as an effective advocate of sound waste management policy.
To date, it has not.
6. The Government repeatedly indicates it
wants to place the environment and sustainable development at
the heart of the UK's future economic growth. The UK should at
least aspire to be a leader in European waste management policy
rather than merely aim to be led. This requires changes in policies,
changes in relationships and for the UK to show real leadership
in word and deed.
7. Despite the obvious role of the EU, Waste
Strategy 2000 failed to set out a programme to implement EU legislation
more effectively, provide a programme to lead within the EU on
waste and environmental issues or seek to connect Waste Strategy
2000 to strategic environmental policy such as the emerging 6th
Environmental Action Programme.
8. Indeed, in waste policy the UK has often
been a more reliable model of how a leading EU Member State should
not approach implementation of EU law. Given the tiny proportion
of GDP spent on waste management, we have been amazed by the spectacle
of the Government's apparent insouciance at the damage to its
reputation caused by frequent infraction proceedings and quarrels
with the Commission arising from the Government's failure to prevent
precisely the kind of environmental enhancement its own rhetoric
purports to espouse.
9. Members of the Select Committee will
be aware, for example, that despite repeated warnings of potential
problems from ESA's Members and without any infrastructure in
place, the UK was left to manage nearly 3 million end-of-life
fridges, rising on an annual basis, after the Government embarked
on an exercise in futility by challenging the meaning of the EU's
Ozone Depleting Substances Regulation.
10. Whilst we do not claim that other EU
Member States are necessarily a perfect model for the UK to follow,
countries such as the Netherlands often exceed the minimum requirements
of EU Policy. For example, in 1997 the Netherlands introduced
an administrative order banning the landfill of recyclable construction
and demolition waste. This has led to extremely high levels of
recycling of construction and demolition waste.
11. There is no clear evidence that the
Government has decided to move away from the cheapest possible
waste management solution it thinks it can get away with under
EU law and instead to put in place a regulatory framework to enable
progressive achievement of the Best Practicable Environmental
Option that can be achieved in the context of EU law.
12. The Government's own past delay adds
to the difficulty and urgency of its task ahead. There is an overwhelming
need for sufficient critical mass within the Government to drive
an appropriate agenda forward on waste management. DEFRA's Aim
and Objectives do not instil confidence that waste is a priority.
DEFRA needs the necessary structure and resources and we regret
that DEFRA's waste division has been chronically under-resourced
in recent years.
13. The work of the Strategy Unit offers
the UK a chance to redress the balance. We recognise, without
qualification, that the present Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon
Margaret Beckett MP, has displayed real and effective leadership
in asking the Strategy Unit to examine the economic framework,
targets, regulations and other instruments required to meet the
UK's international obligations in the most cost effective and
environmentally sustainable way.
B. PROGRESS AGAINST
TARGETS
Municipal and household waste
14. Waste Strategy 2000 established the
following targets for the recovery of municipal waste:
— to recover value from 40% of municipal
waste by 2005;
— to recover value from 45% of municipal
waste by 2010;
— to recover value from 67% of municipal
waste by 2015.
15. Furthermore, the Strategy set the following
national household waste recycling targets:
— to recycle or compost at least 25%
of household waste by 2005;
— to recycle or compost at least 30%
of household waste by 2010;
— to recycle or compost at least 33%
of household waste by 2015.
16. The Strategy also announced the introduction
of statutory recycling targets for each local authority.
17. However, halfway through the present
Government's second term of office, Figures 1 and 2 suggest that,
on current performance, the targets of Waste Strategy 2000 will
not be delivered.
Fig. 1. Waste Strategy 2000 municipal waste
recovery targets mapped against projected municipal waste recovery
rates (%). Figures are based on growth of municipal waste at an
average of 2.7% per year. Projections are based on rates of growth
of recovery since 1996-97.
Fig. 2. Current and projected household
waste recycling rates compared to targets set by Waste Strategy
2000. Figures are based on growth of household waste at an average
of 2.7% per year. Projections are based on rates of growth of
recycling since 1996-97.
18. Enviros has also recently advised the
Government that at least a quarter of local authorities do not
expect to reach their 2005-06 Best Value Performance Standard
on recycling.
19. In contrast, Austria, Denmark and the
Netherlands already comply with the biodegradable municipal waste
(BMW) diversion targets of the Landfill Directive. Whereas the
UK sends approximately 80% of its municipal solid waste (MSW)
to landfill, the Netherlands recovers value from nearly 80% of
its MSW.
20. ESA's five largest Members operate in
at least one EU Member State outside the UK. Our Members already
have the expertise and practical knowledge of operating waste
processing technologies and want to invest and replicate their
success in the UK. However, without the regulatory certainty seen
elsewhere in the EU, investment cannot properly, and will not,
be forthcoming.
21. ESA has consistently supported higher
targets for the recycling and composting of the municipal waste
stream. However, recycling and composting alone will not deliver
the recovery targets of Waste Strategy 2000, or compliance with
the UK's Statutory obligations resulting from the EU Landfill
Directive.
22. For example, if 80% of waste from the
average household is recyclable in a system that is 90% efficient
with 60% of the population participating 80% of the time, slightly
over one third of the waste stream is actually returned to the
productive economy.
23. ESA commends the Government for correctly
defining household waste recycling on an output rather than an
input basis. Recycling can only be the separation, collection,
processing and return of waste back to the productive economy
as a secondary raw material. Whilst there is "kerbside collection"
(which makes a very useful contribution) and "recycling",
the input based concept of "kerbside recycling" is not
a particularly helpful or environmentally sound concept.
24. Because definitions vary across the
World, international comparisons of recycling and recovery performance
can be misleading. For example, in Canberra, Australia, in 1998-99
a recycling rate for municipal waste of 57% was reported. However,
when the UK's definition of MSW waste is used to measure Canberra's
performance, this figure falls to 29%.
25. Waste Strategy 2000 did correctly recognise
(in a context where EU law is the driver) that the Government
would need to replicate practice elsewhere in the EU and have
available a portfolio of waste management solutions. For example,
in relation to the total amount of waste they produce, Austria,
Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland
all have a greater capacity than the UK to treat waste thermally
and to recover energy. Germany has five times more energy from
waste facilities than the UK.
26. However, Ministers have often appeared
reluctant to support their own Waste Strategy. The Strategy Unit
review of waste policy is therefore an excellent opportunity for
the Government to issue to local authorities clear and unambiguous
guidance on the whole range of acceptable waste processing technologies.
Commercial and industrial waste
27. Most waste is created by business and
business waste tends to flow to the cheapest method of treatment
allowed by law.
28. Again, EU legislation-for example Producer
Responsibility Directives-sets the agenda for the management of
commercial and industrial waste.
29. The UK has fallen short of its overall
recovery target under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive,
investment in domestic reprocessing capacity has not kept pace
with the UK's obligations, and exports of packaging for recovery
and recycling continue to rise. Growth in paper and board reprocessing
has been achieved not through the development of a strong indigenous
sector but through exports.
30. Data collection has been focused on
the municipal waste stream. Similar attention needs to be given
to commercial and industrial waste data which is poor, unreliable
and largely historical.
Hazardous waste
31. ESA has for some years sought a regulatory
regime requiring hazardous waste-to the extent that it cannot
appropriately be restored to the productive economy-to be treated
to a safe and stable state before final management in landfill.
32. The recently published 2001 Survey of
Public Attitudes to Quality of Life and to the Environment[1]
reveal that the management of hazardous waste is now the main
public concern related to the environment, surpassing concerns
about BSE, pollution, climate change and traffic congestion.
33. However, ESA shares the scepticism of
the EFRA Select Committee[2]
on the extent to which Waste Strategy 2000 provides an effective,
coherent and discernible strategy for the management of hazardous
waste.
34. In a context where time is running out
for the UK, ESA called for a national hazardous waste strategy
to connect, for example, chemicals policy, producer responsibility
and waste management regulation for at least the next decade.
A national strategy would also provide an opportunity to clarify
the responsibilities of waste producers and link relevant EU laws,
rather than treating each legal requirement as a separate entity.
The Government's response to date has been to propose a hazardous
waste forum.
Waste generation
35. There is no coherent and science based
programme within Waste Strategy 2000 to minimise the estimated
428 million tonnes of waste generated by the UK each year[3].
DEFRA's municipal waste survey of 2000-01[4]
has shown that over the past five years municipal waste has grown
by an average of 3% per annum.
36. Waste minimisation is often a central
part of the waste management solutions ESA's Members deliver.
ESA's Members want the British economy to be more resource efficient
and to have a sustainable Total Material Requirement.
37. The Wuppertal Institute report, recently
commissioned by DEFRA, clearly points to the central contribution
that ESA's Members can make in closing the loop and achieving
these objectives. The Report's comments on environmentally valid
recycling and on stabilisation of the carbon cycle entirely reflect
ESA's established policies of restoring to the productive economy
more of the energy and material contained in waste.
C. CERTAINTY
FOR INVESTMENT
38. If the Government provides the policy
framework to stimulate innovative and market-led solutions to
deliver compliance with EU law, ESA's Members are ready to invest
up to £1 billion per annum in new infrastructure. However,
the policy framework must address effectively the fiscal and regulatory
frameworks.
The fiscal framework
I. The Landfill Tax
39. ESA anticipated the Government's apparent
decision to increase the Landfill Tax significantly after 2004.
This is the Government's obvious fiscal driver towards landfill
diversion targets and towards making recycling economically viable.
For years ESA has asked the Government to signal its intentions
for the Landfill Tax after 2004 so our Members could invest in
alternative infrastructure.
40. However, it does not follow that the
tax is the best way to direct additional funds to manage the municipal
waste stream.
41. Broadly, the producer pays principle
already applies to business. Even without specific diversion targets
under the Landfill Directive, commerce and industry will respond
to the price signal of a higher Landfill Tax by seeking to achieve
higher resource productivity. The combination of a significantly
higher Landfill Tax and of producer responsibility would go a
long way towards achieving minimisation of business waste.
42. If the Landfill Tax is raised to achieve
environmental objects there is a strong case for appropriate offsetting
reductions of tax on business. This achieves the Government's
environmental objective with no overall impact on the public purse
and without further undermining competitiveness.
43. However, householders are broadly immune
from the polluter pays principle and raising the Landfill Tax
would not apply the producer pays principle to householders and
does not in itself increase local authorities' resources.
II. Funding the management of municipal waste
44. A survey commissioned by the Environmental
Services Training and Education Trust (ESTET) and published by
MORI[5]
in August 2002 revealed that nearly two thirds of people place
the collection, management and recycling of waste as the most
valued service provided by local authorities, ahead of schools
and highways maintenance.
45. However, recent Budgets and the £140
million waste minimisation and recycling fund have not increased
funding for the management of municipal waste to levels seen elsewhere
in the European Union. For example, France and the UK have the
same population (c. 60 million), the same GDP (c. £1 trillion),
the same municipal waste generation (c. 30 million tonnes per
year) and similar waste composition. However, in 2000 the UK spent
only 50% of France's annual budget on municipal waste management.
This helps to explain how France is able to divert 150% more MSW
away from landfill than the UK.
46. The current cost of waste management
to each household is about £50 per household annually. However,
the MORI poll showed that most people think that the average household
already pays more than £100 per year and more than a quarter
of people think the average household pays more than £200
per year.
47. Funding of the municipal component of
the waste stream needs to increase significantly and ESA has suggested
consistently that the Government should pilot a system of direct
charging for waste. In May 2002, ESTET commissioned Ernst &
Young to produce a preliminary discussion document to explore
the introduction of the producer pays principle to householders
through charging householders[6].
Ernst and Young considered non-regressive models and took fully
into account the current structure of local government and of
local authorities' contracts with our Members. They also considered
the experience of the water sector.
48. Ernst & Young's paper draws a clear
distinction between direct charging, a flat fee local authorities
could collect from Council Tax payers on behalf of ESA's Members,
and variable charging which requires householders to pay more
if they generate more waste.
49. Variable charging is the purer application
of the producer pays principle. It may be the long-term solution
for the UK and we understand that in some parts of the UK some
of ESA's Members could operate variable charging relatively soon.
50. However, given uncertainties in the
longer term evolution of the EU's environmental policy and hugely
divergent recycling rates across the UK, direct charging might
be a more pragmatic and viable initial step towards enabling local
authorities to arrange, on a basis which cost-effectively manages
credit risk, for ESA's Members to provide a higher level of service
to the communities they serve.
The regulatory framework
I. Regulatory certainty
51. Effective regulation underpins the development
of the waste and secondary resources management industry.
52. ESA is disappointed that regulation
promotes cheaper waste management solutions: the demand for waste
processing technologies accrues not from waste producers but is
driven by clear and informed legislation and its effective enforcement.
53. The relatively cheap cost of landfill,
typically far less than extracting energy and materials from waste,
has constrained investment in new infrastructure. Even taking
into account the introduction and rises in the Landfill Tax over
the past five years, there remains a significant economic gap
between cheap landfill and the other options available.
54. Environmental enhancement can provide
opportunities to achieve greater economic and environmental sustainability:
effective and consistent regulation could enable the waste management
industry to transform rates of recovery from waste.
55. However, in broad terms Waste Strategy
2000 appeared to view EU Directives as a maximum to be achieved.
For hazardous waste, this may prove to be a serious error for
the UK. Given the reality of operational changes required by the
Landfill Directive, where hazardous waste is concerned the environmentally
justifiable solution to pollution is not dilution but is instead
preventive treatment.
56. It is also crucial for the Government
to ensure that there is a clear timetable for the implementation
of new EU environmental legislation. The uncertainty caused by
delays in implementing EU environmental legislation such as the
Landfill Directive significantly damages investor confidence.
II. Effective enforcement
57. An effective regulator helps to demonstrate
the competence of the waste management sector. ESA has stated
repeatedly that the most effective contribution that the Environment
Agency can make to the enhancement of the environment and the
promotion of sustainable development is to focus on making a success
of its core regulatory remit rather trying to develop broader
environmental policy.
58. It is vital that the Government ensures
legislation is regulated effectively and according to the principles
of good regulation identified by the Better Regulation Task Force.
Enforcement must be adequately funded if environmental regulations
are enforced effectively and assiduously.
59. In addition, the Environment Agency
must ensure that regulation directs waste to licensed infrastructure.
Environmental criminals such as fly-tippers siphon tens of millions
of pounds annually away from legitimate regulated businesses,
deny people the safe and protected employment conditions offered
by legitimate businesses and prevent the controlled and environmentally
responsible management of waste. For example, in December 2001,
the BBC Ten O' Clock News reported that, according to its calculations,
fly-tipping was costing local authorities £100 million per
annum.
60. For ESA's Members to invest in new infrastructure
to comply with national and international obligations, regulation
must direct waste to regulated infrastructure, with zero tolerance
of criminal evasion of regulated facilities.
III. The planning system
61. The European Environment Agency[7]
has estimated that to meet only the Landfill Directive targets
for BMW, the UK will have to divert nearly 27 million tonnes of
BMW from landfill by 2016. Based on this analysis, the UK will
each week for the next 14 years need to deliver the equivalent
of one new municipal waste processing facility, such as a composting
plant or materials recovery facility, capable of handling at least
40,000 tonnes per annum. In addition, significant further capacity
will also be required to deliver on the targets of Waste Strategy
2000 on commercial and industrial waste.
62. ESA has consistently advised the Government
that the planning process remains a barrier to delivering Waste
Strategy 2000. ESA does not believe that the Government's Green
Paper on Planning will lead to any significant improvement and
we hope the Strategy Unit report will, in this and other critical
respects, prove to be a more effective driver for change.
63. We see no evidence that ODPM and DEFRA
are working together effectively to address these issues. The
Minister for Planning refused to meet ESA earlier this year to
discuss waste management planning which is an essential building
block of the UK's compliance with EU law and achievement of Waste
Strategy 2000.
D. AWARENESS
OF WASTE
64. In his speech to the ESA National Conference
in 1999, the then Parliamentary Secretary, DETR, Mr Chris Mullin
MP, stated that if public attitudes to waste and secondary resources
were to change, a public awareness campaign was needed comparable
in duration and effort to the anti-smoking campaign launched more
than 30 years ago.
65. However, ESA does not detect any significant
and long-term improvement in the recognition and ownership by
householders of the environmental challenges their production
of waste creates. For example, the 2001 Survey of Public Attitudes
towards the Environment and to Quality of Life, published
in July 2002, showed that for certain waste streams fewer householders
were separating their waste.
66. There are many excellent waste education
and awareness initiatives. ESA and its Members support and participate
actively in programmes to raise awareness of waste. However, the
scale of the waste awareness challenge is so great, and the time
available to deliver compliance is now so short, that the Government
must make available more resources to help improve awareness of
waste.
67. Waste Strategy 2000 committed the Government
to supporting the National Waste Awareness Initiative (NWAI).
To build on the support NWAI has already received from ESA's Members,
ESA has proposed special status for a Co-ordinating Environmental
Body associated with NWAI for receiving funding through the Landfill
Tax Credit Scheme.
E. PARTNERSHIPS
68. The engagement of waste managers by
the Government has not always been of the quality ESA would have
hoped, something clearly recognised by the EFRA Select Committee
when it commented recently: "if private industries are to
provide the solutions to waste management problems, they should
be involved in the development of any strategy to achieve such
solutions".[8]
69. An industry that welcomes greater environmental
regulation and progress towards internalising environmental costs
should be a natural ally of DEFRA. However, the publication of
Waste Strategy 2000 did not mark a step-change in the engagement
of the industry by the Government.
70. ESA welcomes the comments of the Secretary
of State when she remarked at the ESTET National Consensus Conference
18 September 2002: "Partnership is already and must be the
way forward for UK waste management. Positive changes in the UK
Waste Management Industry will require government (central and
local), regulators and the waste industry to work together."
71. Following the devolution of governance
and a greater role for the regions, the demands on ESA's Members
are greater than ever and the decision makers must engage effectively.
72. ESA's Members work with the community
collection agents to deliver services for the collection of recyclable
materials. However, the description of community collection services
as "community recycling" or "kerbside recycling"
is incorrect. Householders need to know that the separation of
waste is not the end of the process but merely the first-albeit
important-step in a sophisticated logistical and industrial chain.
73. New infrastructure to manage waste more
sustainably is overwhelmingly provided by ESA's Members. If the
risk component in investment is not to rise, thereby leading to
greater overall cost, the Government must ensure a level playing
field. Rather than trying to intervene in the market through providing
subsidies, the Government should concentrate on providing what
both our Members and the community sector require, a certain and
secure regulatory framework that enables the delivery of high
levels of recycling.
74. As a founder member, ESA has welcomed
and actively supported the contribution and progress of the Waste
and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which represents one of
the few success stories of Waste Strategy 2000. ESA recognises
that WRAP is working on product specification, a green procurement
policy and a national standard for composting. This work is crucial
to enhancing market certainty.
75. However, ESA does not detect a significant
"greening" of Government procurement. For example, in
regard to the sustainable procurement of timber, the EAC committee
has recently commented: "While Government rhetoric has been
laudable, we see no systematic or even anecdotal evidence of any
significant change in the pattern of timber procurement since
July 2000". The Government must lead by example and its word
must become deed.
October 2002
1 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/pubatt/content.htm Back
2
The House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Report on Hazardous Waste (Eighth report of session 2001-02):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmenvfru/919/91902.htm Back
3
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/des/waste/download/pdf/tb01ch07.pdf Back
4
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wastats/mwb0001/index.htm Back
5
http://www.esauk.org/pub/230802.htm Back
6
Ernst & Young: Analysis of the Application of the Producer
Pays Principle to Producers of Household Waste as a Driver Towards
Sustainability. Available at www.esauk.org. Back
7
European Environment Agency Topic report 15/2001. Biodegradable
municipal waste management in Europe. Part 1: Strategies and instruments:
http://reports.eea.eu.int/topic-report-2001-15/en Back
8
The House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Report on Hazardous Waste (Eighth report of session 2001-02):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmenvfru/919/91902.htm Back
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