Memorandum submitted by Cleanaway Ltd
(X3)
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.1 The Government and the Agency should
establish the BPEO, the best practicable environmental option,
for the management of hazardous waste as produced. It is this
lack of clarity that is encouraging the unscrupulous operators
to manipulate wastes at the expense of the environment.
1.2 Clearer guidance on the treatment requirements
for municipal waste, particularly to meet the LATS targets, is
recommended, as are improvements to the planning system and changes
to the landfill tax rates to encourage more investment in the
treatment systems.
2. INTRODUCTION
2.1 Cleanaway is a global waste management
and recycling organisation employing 15,500 people, with operations
spanning fourteen countries on three continents. It is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Brambles, a global industrial services company
dual listed on the London and Sydney stock exchanges. The services
offered to local authorities and industrial and commercial clients
cover a broad spectrum including waste recovery, recycling, collection,
disposal, high temperature incineration and advice on Best Practice.
2.2 Cleanaway UK has a commercial and industrial
customer base of over 70,000 and the municipal arm of the company
holds 49 contracts with 46 local authorities, providing waste/recyclables
collection, street cleansing and ancillary services. The recycling
collection service diverts nearly 3,000 tonnes of material away
from landfill every week.
2.3 The company has a technical waste business
dedicated to the management of hazardous waste, which remains
the largest hazardous waste business in the UK today, with access
to the widest range of facilities for recovery, recycling and
disposal. We operate a number of hazardous waste facilities including
a solvent recovery plant, physico-chemical treatment facilities,
bio-treatment plant and the UK's largest merchant high-temperature
incinerator representing two-thirds—80,000 tonnes—of
UK capacity. In total, the company handles over 300,000 tonnes
of hazardous waste per annum. Cleanaway operated one of the country's
largest co-disposal landfill sites until reclassification was
required under the Landfill Directive in July 2002.
2.4 Cleanaway welcomes the establishment
of this inquiry and is pleased that the Committee has recognised
the importance of needing a robust Waste Policy, particularly
in relation to meeting the requirements of the Landfill Directive.
Cleanaway believes that Waste Strategy 2000 did not address important
issues relating to hazardous waste and we have consistently asked
policy makers to take proper account of the management of hazardous
waste when developing waste strategies.
3. HAZARDOUS
WASTE
3.1 The implementation of the Landfill Directive
and other associated European legislation is introducing significant
and complex changes to the management of hazardous waste. The
cessation of co-disposal signalled the most significant change
in waste management practices since the introduction of the Deposit
of Poisonous Waste Act 1972. Industry is reluctant to invest in
new facilities as there remains great uncertainty as to how the
legislative changes will influence the production of the waste
and methods of its management.
Impact of change
3.2 It is still too early to measure the
real impacts of the changes to landfill practices. In the few
weeks since the co-disposal ban and the significant reduction
in available hazardous waste landfill capacity, the effects have
not been as dramatic as might have been expected. Treatment plant
operators have not seen a significant increase in throughput although
prices charged for hazardous waste disposal to landfill have increased
dramatically.
3.3 Agency data on waste statistics and
tracking are not sophisticated enough to determine where the waste
displaced from landfill is going. There are rumours in the industry
that waste is being manipulated and continues to go to non-hazardous
landfill. We know that some companies are stockpiling wastes to
see what happens in the market place. Some are holding their waste
to see whether the Agency's enforcement policy will permit them
to use "low-tech" treatment options such as absorption;
others are holding material in the hope that they can send it
to cement kilns if the Agency's proposal to relax the Substitute
Fuels Protocol comes into effect.
3.4 The ending of co-disposal in July 2004
and the necessity to use dedicated hazardous waste landfill sites
(for the disposal of wastes not yet required to be treated to
meet the Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC)) caused most major waste
management companies to withdraw from this market. Hence, the
capacity for hazardous waste landfill disposal is now limited
and probably inadequate, and the uneven distribution of the sites
is leading to very significant increases in transportation of
hazardous wastes around the country. This is increasing the overall
disposal costs significantly and either no environmental improvements
or even negative effects on the environment are occurring.
3.5 Regarding landfill disposal of hazardous
wastes in the future, the trade association implored Government
to adopt much higher standards so that the associated risks could
be quantified and limited in terms of scale and duration. This
would have allowed companies and their shareholders to be comfortable
with the level of risk and limit the timescales of financial exposure.
Regrettably, that approach was not adopted.
3.6 One immediate impact has been that there
are a number of smaller new entrants into the hazardous waste
business. It is of concern that some of these companies are saying
that they do not intend to be around for a long time and they
may leave an expensive legacy.
Adequacy of preparation
3.7 From Cleanaway's perspective, the UK's
preparation for the Landfill Directive has been very poor. The
Select Committee's Report following the inquiry into hazardous
waste acknowledged that the UK was ill prepared for the significant
changes that were about to come into effect. Industry had been
explaining to Defra for many years that they would not have the
confidence to invest without clarity.
3.8 There have been continued delays in
the implementation of some of the legislative changes, such as
the WAC for hazardous waste to landfill and these have further
exacerbated the problems associated with uncertainty.
3.9 Even in this uncertain environment,
Government has proceeded with the expectation that industry would
necessarily provide facilities for the treatment and disposal
of hazardous waste. This was despite the warnings given by the
industry and its trade association that much greater degrees of
certainty would be required before investment would be committed.
3.10 The changes to hazardous waste management
will inevitably result in higher disposal/treatment prices. This,
in turn, will encourage unscrupulous operators and producers to
take the cheapest option. The Agency needs to be in a position
to make sure that improper waste handling is not allowed but there
are concerns that the Agency may not have sufficient resources
to regulate effectively.
3.11 Cleanaway welcomes the establishment
of the Hazardous Waste Forum and believes that this type of stakeholder
group should have been established much earlier. The Forum has
been able to offer a platform from which to raise concerns but
has not yet been able to develop a sustainable hazardous waste
strategy for the UK. For example, is it the Government policy
to encourage all the hazardous waste to be blended so that it
can be burned in cement kilns?
3.12 The Government needs to have a vision
of the structure it wants for the management of hazardous waste
in the future; it is not satisfactory to leave the market to decide.
If left to its own devices, the market is likely to adopt the
cheapest available technology not involving prosecution (CATNIP)
and not the best available technology (BAT). CATNIP will always
be cheaper, and usually more profitable than BAT. Experience has
shown that investing in BAT facilities can prove uneconomic if
the waste is allowed to continue to be disposed of at cheaper
facilities. Waste will always migrate to the cheapest cost option.
What steps should now be taken?
3.13 The Government needs to be clear whether
it wants industry to deliver CATNIP or BAT processes and then
produce legislative support to encourage investment.
3.14 The Agency has produced some valuable
guidance documentation and we would like to see more of these
position statements setting out clear concise guidance for producers,
particularly SMEs. We need clear statements on what the Agency
regard as unacceptable practices and these activities should be
stopped immediately.
3.15 We are concerned about what is happening
to the hazardous waste that we expected to be diverted from landfill.
The Agency should conduct a thorough investigation to establish
if waste is being handled unlawfully.
3.16 The Government and the Agency should
establish the BPEO, the best practicable environmental option,
for the management of hazardous waste as produced. It is this
lack of clarity that is encouraging the unscrupulous operators
to manipulate wastes at the expense of the environment.
3.17 The Hazardous Waste Forum has initiated
an educational drive to get the message across to the SMEs. This
work must continue as a priority and be funded as appropriate.
3.18 Inevitably, waste producers are studying
their hazardous waste production outputs very carefully and so
the market is continually evolving. It has been difficult for
the waste industry to plan given the inadequate or poor quality
data on waste arisings but the legislative changes are causing
the data to change very rapidly. The types and scale of plant
needed to treat the wastes to meet the criteria thus remain uncertain
and for the more difficult waste streams, there may not be viable
processes available to treat the wastes to meet the WAC by July
2005. This could mean that high temperature incineration, at a
cost, is the only technical solution and some industries may opt
to transfer their production units abroad.
4. LANDFILL
4.1 Government chose to bring forward the
implementation of the IPPC Directive and use PPC permitting to
enforce the Landfill Directive. Whilst this offered advantages
in terms of streamlining the effort needed by both industry and
the controlling authorities, it appears to have led to confusion
and complexities, which Government has been unable to resolve.
Both pieces of legislation are highly convoluted and this needed
a very early and strong lead from Government to give the industry
and the Agencies clarity in the implementation. Such a lead has
not been forthcoming in the way of Government guidance and most
of the legislation needed has been late.
4.2 This forced the Agencies to write their
own guidance, often causing consternation in the industry. The
re-permitting process has consequently become slow, cumbersome,
frustrating, delayed and is probably not leading to any significant
environmental improvement or reassurance to the public.
4.3 As we try to move forward from re-permitting
into the more significant changes required by the Directive, the
problems and the divergence in views between the Government and
the Agencies become more apparent. For example, the Environment
Agency's draft guidance on the treatment requirements of the Landfill
Directive was issued in 2001 and has still not been finalised.
However, recent draft guidance issued by Defra does not concur
with the Agency's.
4.4 Defra has been promising the Agency
a direction on the dates required for implementation of the non-date-specific
aspects of the directive, such as, when treatment prior to landfill
at existing landfill sites will be needed and when the ban on
the disposal of liquid wastes at existing sites will be applied.
There is still no indication of when these changes will be required
and so it is hardly surprising that the industry is not investing
heavily in treatment facilities for wastes going to landfill or
to divert liquid wastes from landfill. It is also unclear as to
why Government has decided these two aspects of the implementation
of the Directive should receive a specific direction. There are
many other non-date-specific requirements that are being implemented
by the Agency on the issue of new permits for existing sites,
leading to competitive disadvantages for the operators of those
sites compared with the sites that have not been re-permitted.
4.5 There is an overriding requirement in
Article 5 of the Directive to reduce the amount of biodegradable
waste going to landfills. This is an aspect that has been largely
overlooked by Government and, therefore, is not receiving any
attention by the industry. Article 5 required member states to
produce a national strategy to reduce biodegradable waste going
to landfill by 2003. The Government's Waste Strategy 2000 was
intended to satisfy this requirement, stated at Part 2 paragraph
1.6. It is further acknowledged in Part 1 paragraph 3.48 that
the general strategy to reduce biodegradable waste going to landfill
will be achieved by proposals including the packaging regulations,
the landfill tax and the target for reducing the amount of industrial
and commercial wastes sent to landfill. It was stated that, by
the date of the national strategy required in Article 5, the Government
proposed to review the effectiveness of those measures in reducing
the volume of non-municipal biodegradable waste sent to landfill.
There does not seem to have been any impetus by Government to
pursue this required objective.
4.6 The diversion of biodegradable municipal
waste (BMW) from landfill to meet the Article 5 targets is required
by the Waste and Emissions Trading (WET) Act and the Landfill
Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS). Given that these targets relate
to BMW production in 1995 and this has been growing at around
3% since, the targets will prove very difficult to achieve and
if the growth rates continue, the eventual target in 2020 will
stiffen from 35% to around 18% of the 1995 figure. The only way
that this figure can be achieved nationally will be by a much
greater use of incineration of municipal waste.
4.7 The focus of attention and the initial
statutory performance targets of Waste Strategy 2000 referred
to recycling and composting. Recycling and composting leads to
the removal of the more easily accessible components of the municipal
waste stream, many of which are not biodegradable. This means
that there will have to be an intensification of the treatment
of the residues after the removal of recyclables and compostables
but, even then, it will have to be recognised that biological
treatment methods are unlikely to meet the final target. However,
Government has not provided any assistance to accelerate the provision
of the large number of treatment facilities needed and is only
now beginning to support research into treatment systems.
The Planning System
4.8 The planning system still injects very
protracted delays into the development of facilities, particularly
through the development plan process, and it is becoming increasingly
difficult to find locations that can be used for waste management
processes such as treatment. The planning system negates the use
of existing facilities for treatment processes that are regarded
as "sui generis", so requiring specific planning permission
for a change of use. Most industries can move straight into premises
that have permission for general industrial use. Existing warehouses,
which are allowed to accommodate some light industrial use without
requiring a new planning permission, would be ideal for in-vessel
composting plants. Consequently, not only would the granting of
permitted development rights for change of use from industrial
or warehouse uses to waste operations accelerate the provision
of such facilities, the costs involved would be reduced by avoiding
the expense of specific planning applications, inquiries and the
construction of dedicated buildings.
Landfill Tax
4.9 Government has signalled its intention
to discourage the landfill of waste through the landfill tax escalator.
It should recognise that the establishment of treatment processes
will be very expensive and further encouragements will be necessary.
The landfill tax has two rates, the full active rate, currently
£15 per tonne and the reduced inactive rate for inert wastes,
at £2 per tonne. There will always be residual wastes generated
from the treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) and the only
way to take advantage of the reduced tax rate is through incineration
to remove all biodegradable matter. This means that no matter
how much treatment effort is put into MSW to divert the BMW by
other methods, the residues will always incur the full rate of
tax. This is discouraging investment in new processes and seemingly
inadvertently pushing local authorities and industry towards incineration,
a prospect which is still politically and socially unpopular.
4.10 The establishment of an intermediate
tax level reflecting the large amount of effort and cost incurred
in carrying out the treatment of BMW but still producing residues
would give a much-needed encouragement to the development of such
processes.
LATS
4.11 Though for England, the LAT Scheme
has been delayed for a year, the development and planning of new
facilities to treat the BMW is needed now to hit the first target
in 2010. The development of methods and the large number of facilities
has been delayed because no guidance has been issued on the methods
to measure the biodegradability of the residuals. It will take
some time before laboratories are established with a capability
of carrying out the necessary testing once the methodology is
released. Then the capabilities of the various systems will have
to be compared before the investment in the facilities can be
made and their construction can commence.
1 October 2004
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