Memorandum submitted by Biffa Waste Services
Ltd (X11(1))
Biffa Waste Services is the largest waste
management company operating in the UK and can justifiably claim
to be the most diverse in terms of its spread of interest in industrial/commercial
and domestic collection, landfill, liquid waste and specialist
hazardous waste management systems. The company has a turnover
of around £760 million at a current annualised rate and is
also in the top three waste management companies operating in
Belgium. We are wholly owned by Severn Trent Plc with over 150
operating centres throughout the UK. We handle 14 million tonnes
of material that is treated, landfilled or recycled on behalf
of an extensive customer base exceeding 85,000 in the public,
commercial and industrial sectors plus collection services to
1.3 million households.
One feels a sense of déja" vu in
the sense that it is almost possible to resubmit our evidence
to Select Committees on:
— Delivering Sustainable Waste Management
(Ev 99-104, Section F), September 2000.
— Hazardous Waste HC911 (Ev 147-150),
May 2002.
— The Role of Defra HC991 (Ev 120-123),
May 2002.
with minor amendments in terms of nouns and dates.
That said, however, the intervening four years have allowed the
government to hone their skills in disintegrated decision making
to still higher levels. It would, however, be churlish to lay
this entirely at the feet of Defra—given the wider constraints
of "the system". This response would like to concentrate
on the following key issues:
(a) Scientific contradictions in the transposition
of EU Directives.
(b) The lack of accurate data.
(c) Our experience since 16 July.
(d) Associated issues—LATS/planning/funding.
Dealing with each of these in turn:
(A) SCIENTIFIC
CONTRADICTIONS IN
THE TRANSPOSITION
OF EU DIRECTIVES
Given that hazardous waste is explicitly defined
in listings agreed with the EU, the government has created paradoxes
by applying these regulations to industrial and commercial materials
whilst blithely exempting identical materials in identical containers
of identical concentrations from the household stream. This demarcation
is scientifically nonsensical, drives a coach and horses through
the purpose of the entire regulations, and creates opportunities
for criminal activity. It is not the first time that government
sees the regulatory framework for household and industrial/commercial
wastes (which are identical) as needing to be separate—and
it reflects an attitude which demonstrates a legalistic rather
than a practical approach to the entire waste management process.
We would refer your Committee members' attention
to the conclusions and recommendations (as well as our evidence)
to the House of Lords European Committee when it investigated
this issue at length. Virtually all those conclusions are validated
yet again with regard to the application of the Landfill Directive—two
years later.
(B) THE LACK
OF ACCURATE
DATA
We are now well past the 10th anniversary date
when the issue of creating a national integrated database for
waste material flows—as well as parallel systems for material
inputs throughout various supply chains—was raised, with
Defra specifically and government in general. The good news is
that Defra have now formed a Data Advisory Panel (of which I am
proud to be a member). The bad news is that it is 10 years too
late. This is especially to be regretted given the extremely good
data collected by all waste management companies on hazardous
waste as a result of specific legal requirements. Since the Control
of Pollution Act, this data has been collected in paper form and
distributed physically to six different parties—WDAs, the
Environment Agency, producers and final processors. Five years
ago the Agency looked at collecting this electronically online
but for reasons best known to itself—presumably Treasury
intransigence to provide additional funding for work of this nature—nothing
happened. Had such a system been initiated and in operation now,
the Agency would have known within a week, precisely where substantive
percentage shifts had occurred by material, producer, disposer,
geography and composition. Indeed, similar systems in general
use in industry would list the biggest percentage shifts in descending
order by whichever parameter is selected, enabling the Agency
to manage its visit schedule/investigations on an exception basis—allowing
efficient use of manpower resources. Such systems could have been
initiated particularly easily due to the standardisation of the
documentation across the entire industry.
Given the Agency's natural preference for risk
based systems, Hazardous Waste would have been the obvious place
to trial such software. This would have been particularly useful
since identical systems will be needed if we are to avoid future
fiascos with regard to waste electrical and electronic equipment,
tyres, batteries, end life vehicles and other materials subject
to future segregated management systems (such as on-farm plastics,
pharmaceuticals, pesticides and agrochemicals).
The essence of such systems is that all participants
in the "reverse logistics supply chain" are obliged
to sign on to a password controlled relational database via the
World Wide Web and record all transactions with all other parties
for the specified material. Each day/week/month, inputs and outputs
between all the parties are then matched and balanced out in much
the same way that the National Banking Cheque Clearing System
operates—thus enabling any imbalances from free riders/illegal
disposers to be identified within days. Such systems will also
be of material importance in developing a proper national framework
strategy with regard to the provision of sufficient processing
capacity in the context of planning and regional spatial strategies.
It would also make Regulatory activities dramatically more efficient.
At the time of writing—10 weeks after
16 July—no-one seems to have a clue what is going where,
compositionally, geographically or by industry sector. It is a
complete replay of the liquid hazardous wastes that "disappeared"
when the ban on liquids to landfills were introduced almost two
years ago.
(C) OUR EXPERIENCE
SINCE 16 JULY
If it helpful to the Committee, it might be
worth relaying our own experience. Before 16 July—we landfilled
around 8.5 million tonnes per annum—an average monthly run
rate of around 700,000 tonnes per month. Post 16 July our run
rate seems unaffected against trends in March/April/May before
the pre July rush—but it is early days. We would have expected
around a 30,000 tonne per month drop (equivalent to 1,500 large
truck loads of contaminated soils). This stability in input tonnage
would suggest one or more of the following possible scenarios
at work:
(i) Small, commercial hazardous waste generators
(garages/spray booths/engineering companies/printers, etc) who
separated hazardous waste or commingled it with other non hazardous
waste and described the entire load as hazardous are now removing
that material and taking it discretely to domestic civic amenity
sites in the guise of private householders.
(ii) Complete loads of inorganically contaminated
soils (which do not smell or have otherwise telltale signs) are
being delivered to unsuspecting waste transfer stations, put through
trommel screens and commingled with other soils/rubble for onward
transfer as recovered soils—or being disposed of direct
to landfill as inert cover material at £2 per tonne landfill
tax rate.
(iii) Unscrupulous builders are "blending"
organically contaminated soils which have been left to evaporate
hydrocarbon residues and/or any inorganic contaminated soils on
building sites by a form of "dilute and disperse"—taking
contaminated skips from one site and sharing it around their other
clean sites like some construction sector version of whiskey blending.
The material is then consigned to waste transfer stations, rather
than being left in-situ where there are risks of future identification.
I have personal knowledge of one case where
a hazwaste "cake" producer in Bristol has been told
the Agency allowed his regular landfill to reclassify this material
as inert.
Some of this is pure speculation and is certainly
not designed to question the character of the construction sector—which
is generally making substantive efforts to green its supply chain.
Nevertheless, temptations must exist where a landfill 10 miles
away has closed and one of the eight currently registered sites
is 150 miles away (Scotland being a prime example).
An online database would throw up information
on these trends at the press of a button, of course. How could
one otherwise form a view?
(a) The first option is to examine the Customs
& Excise tonnage data for the entire landfill sector although
this is not perfect because—as usual—this system was
set up by the Treasury without regard to any inter-relationship
with Defra. Thus it will show trends in inputs for zero rated
soils used as cover, £2 rated inert materials landfilled
and £15 per tonne rated active wastes.
(b) In considering the total tonnage inputs
proven by the Customs data, it is necessary to abstract tonnages
relating to household data. That is because the £400 million
of subsidies given to local authorities to kick-start recycling
programmes are beginning to make a dent in the historic upward
trend line—removing those tonnages would give a better picture
of the underlying industrial/commercial position. That could probably
best be achieved by reference to the Municipal WasteDataFlow initiated
by Defra from 1 April—a project commenced through the award
of Biffaward Landfill Tax Credits. Unfortunately submission of
data to this system is not compulsory—nor is there likely
to be much historic data. Nevertheless, it might provide an indication,
if one looks at the returns from Waste Disposal Authorities and
Unitaries.
(c) Returns from WDAs and Unitaries, however,
are best distinguished between tonnages delivered in conventional
collection trucks direct from household rounds and those tonnages
originating from CA sites—it is the latter which is a possible
Achilles heel in attracting in illegal industrial and commercial
hazwaste. It is always possible that material is being put in
domestic dustbins but this is a risky process—particularly
where loader operatives are especially trained to guard against
this possibility.
(d) Reference to the Environment Agency fly
tipping database would also be useful—if that is stable
then probably the material is ending up in landfill.
The need for this detective work is simply the
result of the way that different government departments independently
collect data and formulate systems without cross communication
between departments—very much like the fire engines operated
by insurance companies in the 18th century who only put their
own fires out! The problem for the legitimate operators in the
waste industry is that we have lost around a third of a million
tonnes a month at rates of £40-£60 and—in a worst
case scenario—that material could be reappearing for landfill
at anything from £12 gate fee plus £15 tax, or £5
gate fee plus £2 tax, or we could be buying it for daily
cover plus zero tax!
(D) ASSOCIATED
ISSUES—LATS/PLANNING/FUNDING
(i) It is important that the tone of our
response is seen as one of resignation rather than explicit critical
attacks on Defra or the Environment Agency—it seems increasingly
clear that both these departments suffer at the hands of insufficient
financial resources to establish the necessary data infrastructure
which would then possibly allow them to operate within a revised
budget with considerably fewer people. That could be achieved
because good management information systems would allow them to
run their system by exception—rather than commit many people
inefficiently to objectives where they have no means of knowing
whether they are being directed in the right place at the right
time and there is no system for quantifying the impact of past
actions.
(ii) Both departments are also victims of
the distinctions between the Roman based mainland European legal
systems (which emphasize aspirations rather than method) and the
legalistic/litigation based Anglo-Saxon system (which emphasizes
compliance and observation sometimes at the expense of the objective).
Defra has made genuine efforts in other areas to cross communicate
with other departments—the most recent being with regard
to waste and the planning system in conjunction with the ODPM.
Our industry was involved in that round-table consultation process
with NGOs.
But there is a but . . . both Defra and the
Environment Agency should be focused on outcomes based systems
(adopting the recommendations in the Better Regulation Task Force
report). Industrial and commercial waste streams are extremely
sensitive to price and enforcement signals but the Defra approach
to the wider issues of your consultation do reflect a certain
lack of awareness of how both the commercial and the real world
operates. This was most typified in the recent round of discussions
on the Local Authority Trading Scheme (LATS). Yet again they find
themselves being tied in knots as a result of seeking to differentiate
organic waste from industry and commerce and organic waste from
domestic households—despite the fact that the chemical properties,
composition and potential for pollution of both source types is
identical. The distinction between these two sectors is a hangover
from the days when the majority of staff in Defra and the Agency
naively assumed that household waste was the only sort of waste
that existed. To continue this distinction—which is not
observed in Europe—will land them in continuing difficulties
and make them look foolish. This already happened in the LATS
consultation with local authorities:
— Implementation has been delayed by
a year.
— Implementation is likely to
coincide (in an election year) with the news that huge sums of
credits will be sold for high sums by high recycling (often) Conservative
or Liberal Democratic districts and counties to low recycling
and impoverished Labour districts.
— In an open meeting with public
sector bodies, they confirmed that organic waste collected from
commercial premises (restaurants/hotels, etc) would not count
towards Council diversion targets if it were recycled. The recommendation
was for local authorities to ramp the price of commercial services
undertaken by their fleets and effectively lose the business to
the private sector. Of course this is good news for us because
but—as one delegate pointed out—wouldn't it be a better
idea to auction off the goodwill in those businesses to eager
private sector companies such as ourselves who would actually
pay local authorities for it!
— In response to the next question
(that many commercial contractors legitimately or illegitimately
bring organic waste to council civic amenity sites and a ruling
would be needed as to how it would count in the targets), all
the Agency could say was that they would have to consult with
their lawyers.
CONCLUSION
Such a situation is symptomatic of what happens
when bureaucrats try to create a framework without going back
to the basics and investigating the primary vision of these regulations.
The European legal approach ensures this is not a difficulty outside
the UK—here it is a major obstacle. The emergent parallel
rules we are developing between household and industrial/commercial
streams must be ended forthwith—although it is questionable
whether this is now a possibility given the way a number of regulations
have already been implemented. In Europe "household waste"
is simply a descriptor of the material characteristics regardless
of origin—not the fact that it originates from places where
people happen to sleep overnight.
Further manifestations of this lack of realism
appear in the tendency to create tradeable permit regimes customised
on a product by product basis—packaging, WEEE, ELV and so
on. But that is another story . . .
Peter T Jones
Director—Development & External Relations
6 October 2004
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