Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by the Non Ferrous Alliance (X29)

  The Non Ferrous Alliance (NFA) represents the member federations for the aluminium, cobalt, copper, lead, magnesium, molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten and zinc industries in the UK. The UK non-ferrous metals industry turnover is about £4.5 billion and it employs about 36,000 people in some 330 firms. A few of these are large national and international companies, but the majority are small or very small.

  1.  The Non Ferrous Alliance has been lobbying on behalf of the members on this issue for some time and would make the following comments.

  2.  The recent landfill legislation was brought in very late and clarity on the full details of the Landfill Regulations was not available until one month before the end of co-disposal.

  3.  NFA held several meetings with Defra and the Environment Agency and made numerous and sometimes detailed submissions which appeared to make little difference to the final outcome in the form of the Regulations. Indeed it was apparent that those attending meetings had not always read our submissions.

  4.  Clarity on the requirements for monolithic Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) are still not available.

  5.  The Government has decided not to take up the option for WAC risk assessment and this may well be crippling for our industry. EC Decision 2003/33/EC allows for a risk assessment approach which could alleviate difficulties in waste management whilst alternatives to landfill come on stream. The Government (Defra) have decided that because it would be a strain on Environment Agency resources, the risk assessment will not be allowed for (only for monofill landfills which would not help those with relatively small waste volumes—which, even though small, will cause serious difficulties faced with no landfill option in the short term). We find it infuriating that a lack of resource can be used as a reason to "Goldplate" the legislation, particularly where operations could realistically close if alternatives are not found and the risk assessment not allowed. Waste producers with potentially homeless wastes must be allowed the flexibility to produce risk assessments and bear the costs if necessary.

  6.  The Government must reconsider their decision and we will continue to lobby for a further consultation on the risk assessment option—maybe when the monolithic WAC is finally consulted on.

  7.  Defra recognises that the metals recycling industry is part of the solution in terms of waste management, but has not been willing to make any concessions to allow this industry to continue to manage the irreducible minimum waste from the recycling process, whilst alternatives to landfill are found. For example, the lead-acid battery recycler in our membership will take up to 8.5 million batteries out of the waste stream each year. The process, by its very nature, will produce a relatively small amount of waste which must be managed. Without a risk assessment approach to landfill then this operation may not have a suitable management option for its waste post 16 July 2005. Instead of having a small amount of process waste to manage, the UK would have very large numbers of batteries to deal with—through trans-frontier shipment.

  8.  NFA are concerned that the issues relating to the end of co-disposal may currently be masked and there is still a substantial level of uncertainty regarding the continuity of landfill options for those wastes from our industry where alternatives to landfill are being sought but have not been secured.

  9.  In the immediate run up to the 16 July 2004 deadline, several critical issues arose which may be masking the impact of the end of co-disposal.

    (a)  No mention had been made, of a potential for wastes classified as H12 to be banned from landfill, during any discussion with the Environment Agency (EA) or Defra over the 18 months prior to the end of co-disposal. However a ban was sought in a draft PPC Permit for a landfill operator. Although the original ban issued in the draft permit was modified to an improvement condition, this still came "out of the blue" and is not a requirement contained within the WAC. NFA understand that several landfill operators now have three months to demonstrate that their Waste Acceptance Procedures will adequately accommodate H12 classified wastes. NFA cannot therefore be sure that those wastes from our industry with a H12 classification will have a route for disposal after once their three months is up.

    (b)  The decision was taken to allow those landfill operators, with undetermined applications for PPC permits to landfill hazardous wastes, to continue to landfill under Waste Management Licences (WML). This may alleviate concerns in the short term but NFA have no way of determining which of these landfill sites will be available once their permits have been issued. The conditions of their permits may increase the scarcity of options for wastes from the non-ferrous metals industry.

    (c)  A major landfill operation was closed on the weekend of the end of co-disposal. The NFA understand that this was because the EA required additional information from the operator. This caused additional confusion and chaos during the transition. Although this operation is now re-opened the NFA are concerned that similar closures could severely impact on our businesses, particularly with the very small number of options now available.

  10.  For the primary aluminium industry, the lack of monolithic WAC is prohibitive in determining acceptability in landfill for spent pot lining (SPL) post July 2005.

  11.  Difficulties are also apparent when considering Planning Applications for waste management operations. Unreasonably long delays can be encountered and without the availability of treatment options or landfill options then operations could close.

  12.  On the wider issue of "Waste Policy", we are concerned that a joined-up approach is not being taken on waste. The current definition of waste, for example, makes utilising by-products as alternative raw materials prohibitively expensive and bureaucratic. Indeed for the primary aluminium sector, a possible use of SPL as fuel in cement kilns is made almost impossible by the secondary fuels protocol—a problem not encountered in other member states.

  13.  For Trans-frontier Shipment of waste, the UK prohibits the transfer of wastes for disposal from the UK—not a requirement of the EU Directive. This restriction is again creating additional difficulties for UK industry when compared with those in other Member States.

  14.  When considering the numbers and variety of waste regulations, it is easy to see that individually the impact on industry may not seem so bad—but the cumulative effect of all the waste and other regulations is very arduous.

  15.  The implementation of important controls on waste management must be done with full consideration of the true costs and benefits both to the environment and industry.

  16.  Industry must be given suitable timescales for compliance.

12 November 2004





 
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