Will England meet the landfill
diversion targets?
53. Many witnesses expressed doubts that the national
targets could be met. Several noted that the amount of waste being
produced was continuing to grow, and would have, in the LGA's
words, a "dramatic" impact on the chances of meeting
the targets. Data gathered by the LGA from waste disposal authorities,
setting out each council's prediction for the amount of BMW they
will be sending to landfill over time, suggest it is highly unlikely
that the 2010 target for England for reducing BMW to landfill
will be met.[99] The
LGS added that in the following years "it gets significantly
worse than that".[100]
The LGA's essential message was that more resources were needed
for local councils, and in particular, resources needed to be
targeted at the authorities which are most at risk of missing
their targets. This concern was related to the Association's argument,
addressed earlier in our report, about the lack of data on future
waste flows. If it is not clear which local authorities are going
to face the biggest tasks in the future, the LGA conceded that
they would be "shooting blind".[101]
54. The Composting Association was one of several
organisations which concluded that the national targets were not
likely to be met because of insufficient treatment capacity.[102]
The CIWM felt that the earlier targets could be met, but it would
be very difficult to reach the later ones on the basis of recycling
and composting schemes alone.[103]
The earlier targets were of their nature easier to achieve, but
it would become progressively more difficult to raise the level
of diversion higher and higher. Although the low-performing authorities
should not find it too difficult to improve their performance,
the high-performing authorities might find it more difficult to
improve on their rates. To achieve the 2020 targets, more treatment
capacity would be needed, in addition to more recycling and reuse.[104]
The Institution of Civil Engineers made similar points.[105]
55. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP),
which works to promote waste minimisation, reuse and recycling,
argued that the United Kingdom "is now making substantive
and rapid progress towards the challenging recycling and composting
targets", and felt that this level of progress suggested
that councils had a "fair chance" of meeting the 25
per cent target.[106]
56. An issue which may cloud discussion over likely
progress towards meeting the targets is that there appears to
be some confusion over the definition of "municipal"
waste. Professor Chris Coggins notes that the Waste Emissions
Trading Act 2003, which is the statutory authority for the Landfill
Allowances Trading Scheme, uses the same definition as the Directive,
but the Prime Minster's Strategy Unit report, Waste not, want
not, defines municipal waste as "all waste under the
control of local authorities". 89 per cent of this is household
waste. Professor Coggins cites other apparent confusion over the
exact meanings of the phrase, and the extent to which some commercial
waste, included as "municipal" by some authorities,
would fit in with EU interpretations.[107]
57. The ESA noted that it appeared that organic waste
collected by, or on behalf of, a local authority could be defined
as "municipal" waste when the same waste would not be
included in the definition if it were disposed of directly by,
for instance, a restaurant. Mr Peter Jones, of Biffa, regarded
this as "intellectually flawed".[108]
The LGA noted that trade waste collected by a local authority
will be defined as "municipal" waste, but not if it
is collected by a private sector operator.[109]
There are other apparent anomalies: waste from schools and universities,
for instance, is defined as household waste.[110]
58. The Minister was more upbeat than other witnesses
about the chances of meeting the targets. He told us he was "a
lot more confident" than he had been a year earlier, given
the progress being made, particularly by municipal authorities,
in relation to recycling and reuse, and considerable new investment
in treatment facilities and the imminent introduction of the Landfill
Allowances Trading Scheme. The fact that the 2003-04 target had
been met, and his confidence that the 2005-06 target would also
be met, encouraged him to believe that the overall EU targets
could be met as well. He acknowledged that there were "major
challenges in relation to reducing the waste stream" and
in hitting the targets, but that these challenges were "achievable".[111]
59. We agree with the Minister that the targets
for diversion from landfill are challenging, but we are less optimistic
that they can be achieved. While we welcome the hard work of many
local authorities in meeting their targets for recycling and composting,
we are not convinced that their achievement in meeting the 17
per cent target for recycling and composting - low by the standards
of some other EU countries - is a wholly reliable indicator of
likely success in meeting the targets under the Directive. We
recommend that, in its response to our report, Defra set out,
with as much statistical data as possible, how it thinks progress
towards each of the Landfill Directive targets will be met.
60. We also note evidence about the confusion
among many stakeholders over the exact definition of municipal
waste, and are concerned about the possible impact this might
have on assessing whether local authorities have achieved their
targets and indeed on the operation of the Landfill Allowance
Trading Scheme (LATS). We recommend that Defra make clear, as
quickly as possible, precisely what categories of waste will be
allowed to count towards achievement of local authority targets
and will be included in the LATS, and the criteria used in deciding
them.
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