Memorandum submitted by SITA UK (X19)
SUMMARY
While the UK Government can point to initiatives
such as the Household Waste Recycling Act and the Landfill Allowance
Trading Scheme as significant achievements, it has nevertheless
failed to address the more practical bottlenecks that prevent
the waste industry from investing in much needed treatment facilities.
Poor delivery of regulations, guidance and processing of PPC applications
by the Environment Agency, coupled with the complexities of our
planning system and the perception of slack enforcement, continue
to undermine investor confidence.
The year to July 2005 to some extent represents
business as usual, with concessions made to producers of fragmentiser
waste and the partial application of the waste acceptance criteria
to landfilled waste. The full force of the waste acceptance criteria
will only apply after July 2005. It is by no means certain that
the UK will have sufficient treatment capacity post-July 2005
to handle the diverted hazardous or municipal wastes. Even with
the appropriate policies in place and with the industry prepared
to invest, the UK's complex and elongated planning delivery system
will prevent Government from providing the large numbers of treatment
facilities in time for the UK to meet its targets.
In order to move its domestic agenda forwards,
we recommend that Government take the following actions:
(a) Prioritise Biodegradable Municipal Waste
(BMW). Government should develop a sub-strategy specifically addressing
the BMW component of municipal waste. The UK faces far more serious
consequences if it fails to meet its BMW landfill diversion targets,
than if Local Authorities fail to achieve their broader recycling
targets.
(b) Prepare a cohesive national strategy
for municipal and industrial/commercial waste. As the UK moves
to a resource-based waste management system, the distinction between
various sources of resource arisings will cease to have relevance
in policy and planning terms. A key component of an integrated
national strategy will be to develop a plan to reverse waste growth.
(c) Streamline the waste planning and permitting
regimes. We recommend that Government develop systems and procedures
that conflate the planning and permitting process into a shorter
timeframe, while retaining the checks and balances required to
ensure appropriate scrutiny of the applications and protection
of the environment.
(d) Apply Producer Responsibility to householders.
SITA has advocated direct charging as the most effective means
of providing "up-front" financing of new collection
and treatment facilities.
In concert, the UK should anticipate legislative
trends in the EU. The direction in which recent EU initiatives
on waste and resource management have moved is clear, and there
is no reason why informed and farsighted policymakers cannot foresee
their impact on the UK.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to SITA
1. SITA is Europe's leading waste service
operator and the third largest in the world. The Group's activities
span the whole range of waste management, including collection,
sorting, recovery and treatment and ultimate disposal of hazardous,
domestic, commercial and industrial wastes.
2. SITA has provided waste management services
in the UK since 1989. The Company has grown to become the country's
largest service provider, operating more than 100 municipal service
contracts, 103 landfill sites, several recycling and recovery
facilities along with energy from waste facilities at Edmonton
in North London, Cleveland on Teesside, Kirklees, and on the Isle
of Man.
3. Landfilling within the context of the
Government's waste management strategy and the Landfill Directive
(LFD) has been a significant and critical component of SITA's
portfolio of waste management services in the UK. SITA landfills
approximately 6.5 million tonnes of waste per year in the UK in
40 operational landfill sites. Prior to 16 July 2002 SITA landfilled
approximately 300,000 tonnes of special waste. A large proportion
of this waste continued to be landfilled in our interim hazardous
sites till 16 July 2004. Since this date landfilling of hazardous
waste by SITA has virtually ceased—the company has not applied
for hazardous status, and only one of the several PPC applications
for stable non-reactive cells within SITA's non-hazardous landfills
has been determined to date (for receipt of bonded asbestos).
4. SITA recycles 15% of the waste it handles,
roughly in line with the national average recycling rate. The
company is actively rolling out a business strategy designed to
raise this rate in line with recycling and landfill diversion
targets imposed on Local Authorities.
2. LOOKING BACK—HAS
GOVERNMENT DELIVERED?
5. In the UK the provision of waste management
services relies on the laws of supply and demand to allow the
industry to find its equilibrium in terms of the types, numbers
and locations of appropriate facilities. In this free market system
it is the responsibility of Government to create an environment
in which the private sector and its funders are prepared to invest
the considerable sums necessary to move UK waste management away
from its reliance on landfilling.
6. Has the UK Government delivered this
degree of certainty ? The industry view that it has not, is borne
out by the fact that most of the major sector players have not
opted for hazardous landfill status, while planning applications
for alternative hazardous and municipal waste treatment facilities
are well down on the numbers required to keep pace with national
targets. Industry concerns have been repeatedly aired in fora
such as the Hazardous Waste Forum, and the main issues will only
be summarised here.
2.1 HAZARDOUS
WASTE
7. The adequacy and effectiveness of preparations
made for the management of hazardous waste (and landfill more
generally) has been poor. Not wishing to weaken its negotiating
position vis-a"-vis co-disposal, the UK elected to
mount a rearguard action in Europe to preserve the status quo—a
battle it unsurprisingly lost—rather than spend the years
from 1999 to July 2002 preparing the country for a LFD-compliant
future. In the event, the two years from July 2002 to July 2004
offered the UK only a temporary respite, and insufficient time
to effect orderly change.
8. Government should not take the absence
of an overt "crisis" as the UK passed 16 July 2004 as
reason for self-congratulation. The waste industry has expressed
serious concerns over the inability of the Environment Agency
to track the fate of liquid waste streams since the landfill ban
was enacted in July 2002. Concern has also been expressed over
the non-arrival of previously codisposed hazardous waste at either
waste treatment facilities or at hazardous landfills, post-July
2004. The lack of effective regulation and accountability erodes
business confidence among legitimate waste operators and further
delays investment in new treatment facilities.
9. In evidence to the EFRA Committee's Inquiry
into hazardous waste (2001-02) the waste industry emphasised the
need for certainty with respect to issues such as the Waste Acceptance
Criteria and other forms of guidance required to interpret the
relevant Regulations. As of October 2004 the industry still lacks
key pieces of guidance, again impacting on investor confidence.
Draft Waste Acceptance Criteria for monolithic waste forms were
issued for consultation in May 2004, and are unlikely to be finalised
before spring 2005. Consultation on the Hazardous Waste Regulations
commenced in July 2004 while Defra's interpretation of the Landfill
(England and Wales) Regulations was published in September 2004.
Both are two years behind schedule.
2.2 Municipal and Other Waste
10. Government has launched some welcome
initiatives addressing municipal waste notably the Household Waste
Recycling Act, the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, and the Landfill
Allowance Trading Scheme. However, Government has failed to address
many inherent weaknesses:
(a) The funding gap facing local authorities
discharging their duties in a changing regulatory environment.
Although expenditure on recycling services has increased year
on year, it is still well short of the amounts required to bridge
the gap between the present household waste recycling rate (15%)
and the next target of 25% by 2005-06. Defra's highly dubious
claim that the UK is "on course" to meet the latter
target may in fact prevent the adoption of appropriate policy
and fiscal measures in the coming year, owing to a misplaced desire
to demonstrate political steadfastness.
(b) Key elements of Government guidance are
awaited, for example on the testing of biodegradability, central
to the operation of the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme. Guidance
on waste pre-treatment (consultation draft issued 2001) is still
outstanding. Guidance from the Environment Agency on certain aspects
of landfill operation under the PPC regime are also still in draft.
(c) Government policy continues to be piecemeal.
The present policies perpetuate the notion that resources, raw
materials, products and waste are somehow separate entities and
should be regulated separately. Waste can arise at any point along
the value chain leading into product manufacture, and from there
to product use and discard. The term "sustainable waste management"
has little meaning, except from a narrow operational standpoint.
(d) The UK strategic planning system is complex
and a serious impediment to the timely provision of waste treatment
facilities. The strategic framework for waste planning in the
UK is caught in a web of waste local plans, municipal waste plans,
regional plans, sub-regional plans, RTAB deliberations, etc, not
helped by the fact that responsibility for collection and for
disposal rests with different Authorities. The result is a log
jam that has paralysed waste planning at all levels. There is
also a disjoint in applying the concepts of the waste hierarchy
and the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO), which under
some local circumstances can run counter to each other. Inappropriate
and dogmatic insistence on the waste hierarchy has damaged the
development of sensible and cost-effective solutions in some areas
of the UK, even though a BPEO analysis has manifestly pointed
to a different solution as being environmentally preferable (for
example, incineration with energy recovery).
(e) Urgent action is also required on reform
of the interminable process for gaining planning permissions and
operating permits for waste management facilities of all descriptions.
Presently, the planning and permitting processes in the UK are
separate, unlike some systems in continental Europe. Thus, the
developer has to prepare two sets of submissions and two sets
of environmental and technology appraisals, respond to two sets
of consultation processes, and thereafter potentially endure two
sets of inquiries—a planning inquiry and a judicial review.
Determination times currently can run to two to five years depending
on the type of facility. This destroys any certainty in developing
a robust business case, and has proved to be a serious hindrance
to timely investment in the UK.
3. LOOKING FORWARD—WHAT
GOVERNMENT NEEDS
TO DO
11. SITA recommends that the UK Government
sets its priorities along two strands: addressing the domestic
agenda, and preparing for (and influencing) likely forthcoming
EU legislation.
3.1 The Domestic Agenda
12. Specific recommendations are as follows:
(a) Prioritise Biodegradable Municipal Waste
(BMW). The UK faces far more serious consequences if it fails
to meet its BMW landfill diversion targets, than if Local Authorities
fail to achieve their broader recycling targets.
We recommend that government develop a sub-strategy
specifically addressing the BMW component of municipal waste,
how the targets will be met, how many facilities (of what type)
will be required, the funding requirements, and how the Local
Authority recycling targets tie in with the BMW diversion targets.
The reliance on the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme as a market
mechanism to achieve compliance is not sufficient—of particular
note is the potential for industrial and commercial waste "similar"
to household waste to be included within the definition of municipal
waste.
(b) Prepare a cohesive national strategy
for municipal and industrial/commercial waste. As the UK moves
to a resource-based waste management system, the distinction between
various sources of resource arisings will cease to have relevance
in policy and planning terms. Separate legislative paths are presently
followed—for example, the packaging waste regulations applying
to paper and glass in the commercial sector, while the Best Value
recycling targets apply to paper and glass in the domestic sector.
Each waste stream is typically treated in separate facilities.
A key component of an integrated national strategy
will be to develop a plan to reverse waste growth (see paragraph
14(c) below).
(c) Streamline the waste planning and permitting
regimes. The ultimate challenge facing government is to convert
strategies and plans into operating facilities. As discussed above,
the waste management industry has for many years faced inordinate
delays in achieving planning and permitting for its facilities,
be they incinerators or "greener" alternatives such
as recycling and compost plants.
We recommend that government develop systems
and procedures that conflate the planning and permitting process
into a shorter timeframe, while retaining the checks and balances
required to ensure appropriate scrutiny of the applications and
protection of the environment.
SITA awaits the publication of the draft PPS10,
which we hope will address the structural weaknesses inherent
in the present system.
(d) Apply Producer Responsibility to householders.
SITA has advocated direct charging as the most effective means
of providing "up-front" financing of new collection
and treatment facilities. In previous evidence to this Committee,
we have recommended commencing immediately with full cost recovery
through the existing Council tax system by raising the waste management
element of the charge by £1 per household per week. We then
recommended designing a reward based variable rate system introduced
in step with the technological, operational and administrative
support structures and after public outreach programmes have laid
the necessary foundations.
3.2 Preparing for Likely EU Legislation
13. It is apparent from observing the waste
management scene in Brussels that environmental legislation is
driven by those Member States with the most stringent and/or farsighted
controls and policy initiatives. Environmental legislation from
the European Commission tends to level upwards, while domestic
UK legislation tends to gravitate towards the lowest common (cost)
dominator (hence our overwhelming dependence on landfilling over
the past four decades). Hence in areas where typically the Northern
European Member States have taken the policy lead, the UK has
had to play catch-up. Waste management in general, and the Landfill
Directive in particular, is a case in point. Germany, the Netherlands
and Austria are already compliant with their 2016 BMW diversion
targets.
14. With this in mind, we speculate on some
the likely future issues that face the UK in the medium term,
and for which we need to be prepared:
(a) A requirement to stabilise biowaste prior
to landfilling. This requirement currently applies in Austria
and Germany as a waste acceptance criterion for MBT-treated biodegradable
waste destined for landfill. Its incorporation into the proposed
Biowaste Directive was contemplated before the latter was removed
from the Commission's legislative agenda. However, it is widely
believed to represent a logical progression to the present BMW
diversion requirement contained in the Landfill Directive, when
the latter is reviewed. Its impact on the UK waste management
scene will be of seismic proportions, since biodegradable waste
will need to be pre-treated almost to compost quality in order
to remove biological activity.
(b) Integrated Product Policy (IPP) and Producer
Responsibility. Household hazardous waste is presently exempt
from the Landfill Directive, but will eventually be addressed
at EU level. The IPP initiative has stalled in the European Commission,
but there is little doubt that the principle of Producer Responsibility
will be extended beyond end of life vehicles and electronic goods,
to other consumer items. The UK is ill-equipped to meet this challenge.
Government should engage with trade associations and prepare the
ground for such schemes, giving industry ample warning.
(c) Anticipating the EU's thematic strategies.
The thematic strategies on resource conservation, waste prevention
and recycling will require a different response from Member States
than the present highly compartmentised single-issue strategies
can deliver. The UK should be planning for "sustainable resource
management", integrating within a single policy framework
the management of materials and energy across the entire value
chain and across all economic sectors. Waste should be embedded
within an overall strategy for cradle to grave resource and energy
management. Coherent policies and economic instruments can then
be designed along this value chain, so as to deliver results at
that or any other point. For example, an environmental tax on
raw materials could be designed so as to have the effect of reducing
resource consumption and hence reducing waste production.
In formulating integrated policies, consideration
should also be given to the rationalisation of the definitions
of "waste", "product", "recovery"
and "disposal" so that "waste" processes are
not disadvantaged if they produce products of equal quality. The
place of and shape of landfilling within a sustainable resource
management agenda needs to be clarified.
4. CONCLUSIONS
15. The UK Government's performance in implementing
the Landfill Directive has been patchy at best. While Government
can rightly point to innovations such as the Landfill Allowance
Trading Scheme as examples of its commitment to progress in moving
waste management forwards, it has failed to address the more practical
bottlenecks that prevent the waste industry from investing in
much needed treatment facilities. Poor delivery of regulations,
guidance and processing of PPC applications by the Environment
Agency, coupled with the complexities of our planning system and
the perception of slack enforcement, continue to undermine investor
confidence.
16. The year to July 2005 to some extent
represents business as usual, with concessions made to producers
of fragmentiser waste and the partial application of the waste
acceptance criteria to landfilled waste. The full force of the
waste acceptance criteria will only apply after July 2005. It
is by no means certain that the UK will have sufficient treatment
capacity post-July 2005 to handle the diverted hazardous or municipal
wastes. Even with the appropriate policies in place and investors
toeing the start line, the policy muddle between BPEO, proximity
and the waste hierarchy, and the planning system will prevent
government from delivering facilities in time for the UK to meet
its targets.
17. The true test of the Government's success
in meeting its waste management obligations has yet to come.
7 October 2004
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