Memorandum submitted by the Environmental
Services Association (Waste 39)
ESA is the sectoral trade association for the
United Kingdom's 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
— Driven by EU law, England is now
delivering the highest ever amounts of recycling and landfill
diversion. — However, recycling is still lower than
in many EU Member States. While it is difficult to make direct
comparisons of national recycling rates, the UK recycles less
than other Northern EU countries.
— Household recycling rates have quadrupled
over the last decade as HMG's policy has focussed on weight-based
targets but to improve low levels of investment in recycling infrastructure
in the UK it is essential that HMG has clear dialogue with industry.
— Like other waste streams, municipal
waste management should be fully funded on a basis consistent
with the polluter pays principle. HMG has missed an opportunity
to introduce direct charging for household waste.
— HMG has correctly focussed on Municipal
Solid Waste ("MSW") to comply with EU law but MSW accounts
for only 10% of Britain's total waste and policy should facilitate
development of infrastructure to recover more of value contained
in other wastes
— Waste Strategy for England 2007 is
a welcome step on the road to more sustainable waste management.
However, HMG has missed an opportunity fully to co-ordinate it
with planning and energy policy.
1. How policies proposed by the Waste Strategy
will be implemented and the roles of those responsible for the
production and disposal of different classes of waste-including
industrial, business and household waste. Localisation as opposed
to centralisation of waste management.
The private sector has successfully delivered
dramatically increased recycling at relatively modest cost. ESA's
Members bring experience gained worldwide and are at least as
ambitious as HMG and the Devolved Administrations in wanting recycling
performance improved. Since the last Century, ESA has expressly
recognised that our sector's future must be based on recovering
more value contained in waste and not on ever larger volumes of
waste.
The market for our sector's services is a distress
purchase: customers buy the cheapest solution allowed by law.
Virtually all relevant primary law is EU law and our sector needs
sound implementing Government strategy supported by appropriate
economic and policy drivers.
ESA welcomes HMG's targets to increase recycling
and resource efficiency. Aspirations in HMG's Waste Strategy 2000
were unsupported by effective policies, regulations and economic
incentives and this mistake cannot be repeated.
We comment as follows on the objectives of the
Strategy:
(a) Decouple waste growth from economic
growth and put more emphasis on waste prevention and reuse:
ESA strongly supports this principle in a context
of resource efficiency over complete life cycles and in 2002 the
European Environment Agency reported relative decoupling of waste
and economic growth in the EU. However reduction in waste arisings
is likely to be fairly slow—particularly as England expects
3m more households—so priority must be given to ensuring
existing wastes are managed.
(b) Meet and exceed LFD diversion targets:
Given the shortfall in infrastructure and slow pace
of public procurement, ESA is not as optimistic as HMG that LFD
diversion targets will be met.
(c) Secure investment in infrastructure:
investors need to be confident infrastructure will
be used. Businesses need to be alerted to the basic duty of care,
of which most are ignorant, and the Environment Agency must have
sufficient public funds to secure the convictions of unregulated
environmental criminals who seek to bypass regulated infrastructure.
(d) Increased recycling of resources
and recovery of energy.
HMG controls the levers that determine whether we
become a "recycling society". Thousands of new waste
management facilities are required to meet domestic recycling
targets and clear planning guidance is needed to turn national
policy aspiration into local recycling and recovery.
Since 2002 LATS, and the landfill tax have been the
principal drivers to reduce landfill of MSW but these policy instruments
must be supplemented by simplified processes for planning and
developing waste management infrastructure, including more effective
land use planning and a simpler and cheaper process for awarding
local authority contracts.
The Strategy correctly recognises that the recycling
market is global. The UK cannot become a recycling society in
isolation from other countries. Local services will not always
be viable and the proximity principle may not always affordably
produce the best result.
2. The role for and implementation of regulations,
and their enforcement.
Our Members' customers buy regulatory compliance
and regulation makes the market in our sector.
Operators and investors require clear rules with
appropriate guidance set out well in advance to allow investment
to be planned. Good consultation with industry is required both
in the design and implementation of new regulatory regimes.
Historically, the UK implemented EU rules poorly.
As the Select Committee is aware, transposition was often left
until the last minute, creating unnecessary uncertainty and confusion
for waste producers and managers.
The Select Committee has considered bungled
regulatory interventions at the start of the Century: a succession
of EU laws affecting the management of Ozone Depleting Substances
(principally found in fridges); the Landfill Directive (especially
relating to hazardous wastes); WEEE and chronically overdue regulation
of agricultural waste. In response to deep concern, HMG created
structures such as the hazardous waste forum and the agricultural
waste forum but there has been a feeling that these were used
as a one-way conduit for information rather than constructive
dialogue.
Fewer more recent examples coincide with less
waste-related regulation from Brussels in the last two years.
The major regulatory change in 2007 was the requirement for all
waste to be to be treated before landfill, potentially affecting
every business in the UK. Communication of this requirement was
imperfect: a YouGov survey carried out in October 2007 found that
only 17% of businesses surveyed were aware of the Producer Pre-Treatment
requirement of the EU Landfill Directive and only 4% had a thorough
understanding of their obligations. ESA has persistently urged
that much be done by DEFRA, the Environment Agency and BERR to
ensure that new regulations are transposed effectively and that
proper information reaches businesses and we would be most grateful
if the Select Committee could consider this.
The current Chief Executive and retiring Chairman
of the Environment Agency have substantial improvements to their
credit. One is the recognition of the fundamental distinction
between essentially competent and honest regulated companies and
criminals who deliberately operate outside regulation.
ESA believes the recycling society can be built
only if HMG strongly supports the Environment Agency in fighting
criminals and establishes a national reputation for zero tolerance
of environmental crime. Investors in regulated infrastructure
need to know regulation will be enforced. Environmental criminals
undermine legitimate infrastructure and compromise public health
and environmental quality. Over the last three years BREW funding
of £2 million p.a. has been made available to the Agency
to fight flytipping: ESA has repeatedly told DEFRA this is inadequate.
With further reprioritisation of resources in DEFRA it is imperative
that the fight against environment crime is properly resourced.
ESA has consistently supported the Agency's
drive to modernise regulation. In 2006 ESA agreed a "sector
plan" with the Environment Agency which set out shared sectoral
objectives.
ESA's Members also invest in environmental management
systems (EMS) to ensure environmental impacts are minimised, and
ESA would like to these systems better recognised in the practical
regulation of sites with a higher weighting in the Agency's OPRA
score for a site.
3. The classification of waste.
There appears to be no prospect of the prospective
new Waste Framework Directive ("WFD") modifying the
tried and tested EU definition of waste and we hope that if by-products
are defined in WFD this will not amount to unwarranted.deregulation
of hazardous industrial wastes.
WFD should clarify when specified materials cease
to be waste and, in the interim, the joint WRAP/Agency waste protocols
project is setting out protocols specifying standards to which
materials need to be treated in order to cease being classed as
waste, or to be regulated in a less prescriptive way. However
it is essential that the UK also engages fully in the EU process
of developing "end of waste" criteria to ensure that
the UK "protocols" reflect emerging EU thinking. For
example, given HMG's preference for Anaerobic Digestion, it is
very important that a standard promptly emerges for the compost
like material which this process produces.
4. The proposals for financial incentives
to increase household waste prevention and recycling.
In advocating piloting of revenue-neutral incentive
schemes, HMG missed an opportunity to allow local authorities
to implement charging schemes reflecting the polluter pays principle
and to raise revenue to invest in recycling infrastructure.
Councils must be properly resourced to increase recycling
and recovery rates. England's household recycling has quardrupled
in the last decade but the easy wins have been secured and the
UK still spends less than many EU neighbours.
Experience of WRAP's recent mass advertising
campaign supports the view that recycling drives, such as incentive
based charging, must be accompanied by education and information
programmes to ensure that Waste Collection Authorities are able
to send materials of appropriate quality to Material Recovery
Facilities (MRFs).
5. The role of composting.
In the last five years following the Strategy
Unit report of 2002 and the setting up of the Waste Implementation
Programme, the volume of composted biodegradable MSW has risen
dramatically.
Around 2 million tonnes of material from MSW is composted
each year. Whilst ESA welcomes the development of quality standard
PAS100 and the associated waste protocol which simplifies the
application of quality compost to land, HMG must also clarify
potential uses and associated markets for a wider range of compost
grades.
WRAP's focus on developing markets for high
grade outputs has a negative impact on outlets for lower grade
material. A huge volume of different materials—residues
from food processing, agricultural wastes and sewage and industrial
sludges —competes to be spread on land. Cost and availability
are important considerations.
It is manifestly inappropriate for all households
to compost at home, and whilst initial uptake of schemes can be
high, experience has shown that, without consistent promotion
and support, participation levels fall. We agree with HMG's caution
in including home composting in the calculation of MSW landfill
diversion.
6. The Government's approach to waste minimisation,
for example consideration of responsible packaging, including
examination of the different materials used and the potential
for reusable packaging and return schemes.
Waste minimisation that is consistent with sustainability
over the entire life cycle should be a policy priority but is
no substitute for investment in infrastructure. Despite waste
minimisation programmes and the implementation of producer responsibility
legislation, the European Environment Agency notes that for municipal
waste, indicators point to increasing waste generation.
HMG has been slow to implement producer responsibility
schemes, with particular problems in implementation of the WEEE
directive, but ESA supports HMG's taste for cap and trade schemes
which more effectively align economic and environmental sustainability
than the detailed prescription in some Member States.
While we would have preferred an EU increase
in packaging recovery targets, we welcome HMG's unilateral announcement
of higher packaging targets.
Better labelling of packaging is essential:
particularly as regards so-called compostable/biodegradable packaging.
Clear and accurate information is required both by consumers and
waste managers as to the precise nature of these materials and
the circumstances under which they might break down as this affects
collection and treatment of organic waste. EU standards exist
for many of these materials and it is essential that they are
met consistently by producers.
7. The potential for the proposals in the
Waste Strategy to tackle the UK's contribution to climate change,
in particular through the reduction of methane emissions from
landfill.
The EU waste management sector has already made
significant strides in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Modern landfills can capture over 80% of methane generated and
much of this methane is used to generate electricity: about one
third of the UK's renewable electricity is derived from landfill
gas which replaces energy from fossil fuel.
The reduced biodegradable content of MSW being sent
to landfill will cut the methane produced but, given the lag in
disposal and capping of a site and the beginning and peak of gas
production, significant volumes of landfill gas will be produced
for decades and operators should be incentivised to generate energy
from this source. Unfortunately, the Energy Review in May 2007
reduced the incentive for operators to generate electricity from
landfill gas resulting in methane being flared off.
Given the right economic incentives, much more
energy could be generated from waste, using a range of technologies
and offsetting carbon emissions from fossil fuel sourced energy.
The UK continues to generate much less energy from waste than
other Member States and ESA has called consistently for all energy
from the biodegradable fraction of MSW to be supported by the
Renewables Obligation, no matter what technology is used to recover
energy.
8. The promotion of anaerobic digestion.
Anaerobic Digestion offers potential for treating
agricultural wastes and wastes from food production, resulting
in energy generation and material which can be applied beneficially
to land.
Whilst Waste Strategy 2007 states that "the
Government wishes to encourage local authorities and businesses
to consider using anaerobic digestion" (page 78) ESA believes
that the choice of technology should be based on market considerations.
ESA welcomes the Government's intention to increase support of
AD but this should not, for example, be at the expense of support
for energy generation from landfill gas.
Further work is required to determine the effectiveness
of AD as a method for treating and recovering mixed MSW on a large
scale with variable feedstock. ESA suggests that local authorities
need clear regarding AD's suitability for source segregated waste
streams.
9. The adequacy of the existing infrastructure,
such as energy from waste facilities with heat recovery; the UK's
capacity to process materials collected for recycling; and the
potential for Government action to encourage the most efficient
novel technologies.
The UK relied on landfill as the primary method
of managing waste. Landfills tend to be large, with location defined
by the existence of suitable geology and a hole to be filled.
Often landfill plays a role in environmental improvement such
as restoring used mineral workings.
Existing alternative infrastructure is widely recognised
to be inadequate and the Environment Agency has warned that thousands
of new facilities will be required to replace landfills. Such
facilities will generally be smaller than the landfill they replace
and will not be limited to locations by geology. National and
local government therefore need policies facilitating a more dispersed
network of waste management infrastructure which could be placed
closer to or within centres of population.
The difficulty in obtaining planning permission
is the single biggest brake on the development of infrastructure
and the review of PPS10 two years ago was not a panacea. Local
authorities are not delivering sufficient planning consents and
the Planning White Paper published in the same week as the Waste
Strategy did not address adequately waste management needs.
In principle, the Government's proposals to
devise a National Policy Statement for waste management development
could help to deliver a range of waste management infrastructure.
However, the focus on large scale infrastructure is too narrow:
instead policy should recognise that waste management facilities
of varying sizes, types and capacity are essential if the UK is
to comply with EU law.
The proposed Infrastructure Planning Commission
is an additional layer of decision making which could add complexity,
confusion and delay to the planning system, at a time when additional
waste management infrastructure is urgently required. Instead,
a stronger regional dimension to waste management planning is
needed, with regions better resourced and empowered to make strategic
planning decisions.
ESA welcomes the preparation of a National Policy
Statement for waste management development as an urgently needed
opportunity to provide planning authorities with a robust framework
to ensure new infrastructure can be delivered promptly and efficiently.
Even with a renewed planning system delivering
new infrastructure, England will be for the foreseeable future
be dependent on exports of materials for reprocessing as there
is simply insufficient reprocessing capacity in the UK. Over half
of the UK's paper collected for recycling is processed overseas,
and over two thirds of plastic. Announcements such as the granting
of planning permission for a new newsprint mill in Kings Lynn
in November 2007 increase British capacity but, in a context of
increased collections, most material will continue to be exported.
In response to growing interest in the fate
of material collected for recycling, the Recycling Registration
Scheme was launched by ESA in April 2007. The Scheme allows companies
to demonstrate—by an independent audit—that they are
operating in compliance with a Code of Practice which requires
wastes handled or processed at registered MRFs and exported out
of the UK:
— to be handled or processed at the
registered MRFs in accordance with good British industry practice;
— to accord with Green List Waste Guidance;
and
— when exported, to go to a recovery
facility authorised to operate under applicable domestic legislation
and in general compliance with all applicable domestic environmental
and health and safety law.
As of November 2007 the scheme had eight Members
with a similar number of sites applying for membership.
Environmental Services Association
November 2007
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