Supplementary memorandum by the Environmental
Services Association
ESA is the sectoral trade association for the
United Kingdom's regulated waste and secondary resource management
industry, a sector contributing around £9 billion per annum
to GDP. We help our Members to recover more of the value contained
in the UK's waste whilst protecting the environment and human
health.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
— England is now achieving its highest
ever levels of recycling as a result of HMG's policy driven by
EU law, effective cooperation between local authorities and ESA's
Members, and investment in new infrastructure by ESA's Members.
— England will for the foreseeable future
be dependent on exports of recyclables for reprocessing as the
rapid rate of increase in recycling means there is insufficient
reprocessing capacity in the UK. Legitimate export of sorted recyclables
for reprocessing overseas is an essential element in the UK's
success in meeting recycling targets.
— ESA's Members have a positive working
relationship with the Environment Agency to ensure that shipments
of recyclables are lawful and we support the Agency's enforcement
activities.
— Legitimate global trade in recyclables
such as cans and paper should not confused with the increase in
exports of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), ostensibly
for reuse, from the UK. We consider that the WEEE regime is insufficiently
robust to prevent damage to the environment and human health.
Are the legal and regulatory controls on waste
exports adequately robust?
1. Clear and consistently enforced regulation
is the foundation of the business of ESA's Members. We consider
that the international, EU, and UK legal framework for waste exports
is sufficiently robust to provide the necessary level of protection
against the inappropriate transfrontier shipment of potentially
harmful wastes. ESA supports HMG's policy that waste should not
be exported for disposal, but that it is legitimate and often
desirable for materials lawfully to be exported for recycling
in accordance with the Basel Convention, the EU Waste Shipment
Regulation, and the UK Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations.
The position on shipment of WEEE is, as discussed below, less
satisfactory.
2. As the UK's success in extracting materials
from the waste stream for recycling has grown, so has its reliance
on overseas reprocessing markets. Many manufactured goods bought
in the UK are now produced in developing countries, such as China
and India, where there is demand for the raw materials extracted
from the UK waste stream, such as recovered paper and plastics.
This, and the availability of low cost transport on ships which
would otherwise return empty to the Far East, facilitates a strong
international trade.
3. Everyone involved in handling waste and
in the recycling chain—from the person who produces the
waste to local authorities who collect material for recycling
and deliver it to sorting facilities, to operators of sorting
and bulking facilities and to the final reprocessor—has
a legal duty of care.
4. Further, EU law requires that material
exported for recycling is handled by a facility operating to standards
broadly equivalent to EU standards. Implementation of the revised
EU Waste Shipment Regulation in 2007, in particular, has given
developing countries better protection against receiving unwanted
foreign waste. The revised EU "Green List" controls,
which cover the export of non-hazardous recyclable materials from
the EU, are now routinely updated formally to record the wishes
of countries outside the OECD that have expressed an opinion about
the recyclable materials they are willing to receive. Where a
country has not expressed an opinion, its agreement must be given
before every shipment.
5. The legal framework is designed to prevent
countries from receiving materials they do not want, while facilitating
trade in recyclable materials for which there is a legitimate
demand. There is a double environmental benefit from this trade:
it permits more sustainable use of the world's resources, cutting
the consumption of virgin raw materials, while allowing recycling
levels to rise and reducing our reliance on landfill.
6. ESA considers that it is completely unacceptable
to abuse the legitimate international trade in recyclables as
a cover for dumping unwanted materials on countries that have
no use for them, or do not have the capacity to recycle them safely.
7. We have particular concerns over the
shipment of WEEE as non-waste to developing countries, in order
to bypass lawful treatment of WEEE as waste in controlled facilities
in the UK. It appears that much of this equipment is not reusable,
and is not shipped in a manner to allow it to be reused at its
destination. As such, this trade is illegal, is reportedly causing
damage to the environment and human health and is imposing unaffordable
costs on overseas governments.
8. We invite the Select Committee to propose
that the regime be tightened to ensure that WEEE is properly directed
into the legitimate WEEE treatment system, and that the reuse
sector is subject to proper controls to ensure that only fully-functioning
equipment is exported, and is properly packaged to ensure its
safe arrival overseas. We observe that organisations generating
business WEEE, including the public sector, are among those required
to observe their duty of care.
Are sanctions and penalties for their infraction
sufficient?
9. Under the UK Transfrontier Shipment of
Waste Regulations, a person found guilty of an offence and convicted
in the Crown Court is liable to an unlimited fine or imprisonment
for a term of up to two years, or both. Penalties in the Magistrates'
Courts are limited to a fine of up to £5,000 or imprisonment
not exceeding three months, or both. The Environment Agency also
has various other powers within its remit, such as the ability
to enter premises where it suspects wrong-doing and issue stop
notices to prevent the movement of material in order to gather
evidence of transgression of export regulations.
10. ESA considers these sanctions to be
appropriate, and believes the proper functioning of the regulations
to be more an issue of enforcement than of any need to strengthen
the Courts' powers
Are monitoring and enforcement activities effectively
resourced and managed?
11. In recent years the Environment Agency
has adopted a more robust approach to enforcing the rules on waste
shipments, and has seen greater success in bringing illegal operators
to justice. We understand that the Agency follows an "intelligence-led"
approach which enables it to focus its limited resource at the
point where there is a greater likelihood of prosecution. This
tends to be at the location where the waste material is bulked
up and loaded into shipping containers, rather than at the dockside
where it is difficult to outwardly identify illegal shipments
as containers are not routinely opened before shipment.
12. ESA supports the Agency's approach,
but it continues to be difficult for the regulator to monitor
all sites handling recyclables for export, particularly as the
barriers to entry in this market are low, and operations can be
set up and closed down rapidly. We urge the Government to ensure
that the Agency is adequately resourced to perform export enforcement
activities to ensure the protection of the environment and human
health. We consider that funding could be obtained from landfill
tax revenues to resource additional Agency enforcement.
13. The Agency has been undertaking active
monitoring of permitted Material Recovery Facilities, many of
which are operated by ESA's Members, to assess their compliance
with Green List rules. ESA supports this activity. However, we
are concerned that there have been allegations implicating facilities
not included in this monitoring initiative, which separate mixed
materials for export under an exemption from waste licensing controls.
It appears that exempt facilities are receiving insufficient scrutiny,
and we urge the Agency to step up its regulation of such sites.
14. ESA also believes that greater scrutiny
of waste brokers handling international shipments of waste would
reduce the likelihood of illegal shipments being made from the
UK. It should be made a requirement that waste brokers are able
to demonstrate their technical competence to the regulators as
are operators of permitted facilities under the environmental
permitting regime.
15. ESA has developed an externally audited
compliance scheme, the Recycling Registration Service (RRS), which
enables those exporting UK-sourced recyclables to demonstrate
that they are operating in compliance with Green List rules. The
RRS aims to sustain the confidence of the public, regulators and
local and national government in this trade, and has particular
relevance to those companies working with local authorities which
increasingly focus on their duty of care for waste following collection
and sorting.
16. RRS was established and piloted by ESA
during 2006 in consultation with the Environment Agency and DEFRA,
with the aim of allowing the waste management sector to demonstrate
the traceability of materials sent overseas for recycling. An
independent audit of each facility's operations is completed on
application to join the scheme and regular subsequent audits ensure
ongoing compliance with relevant laws.
17. Eleven facilities are currently registered
under the RRS, with more facilities currently undergoing audits
in preparation for joining during 2009/10.
18. We would suggest that a similar independent
audit scheme would be appropriate for the WEEE refurbishment sector,
to ensure that such businesses only ship overseas properly packaged
equipment genuinely capable of reuse.
2 October 2009
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