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3.1 Chapter 4 sets out possible options for an instrument to limit the use of landfill to meet the Landfill Directive’s targets for biodegradable municipal waste. The options are based partly on the results of a consultancy project on behalf of DETR, and on discussions with a working group of individuals from local government and industry. They do not represent an exhaustive list, as there are no doubt other means of limiting the use of landfill to achieve the targets. The paper focuses on those options which appear to provide certainty in meeting the Directive’s targets, and have some merit in terms of their practicability, impacts, and costs.
3.2 Some preliminary work has been done to test the options against specific criteria:
1. Certainty in meeting the Directive’s targets (including the targeting of the instrument towards its objective)
2. Ease of administration and enforcement
3. Transparency of the instrument
4. Consistency in its application
5. Proportionality in its effect (including environmental and economic effects)
6. Accountability
3.3 SEPA makes clear in the draft National Waste Strategy for Scotland that three key principles for waste management are: the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO); the waste hierarchy; and the proximity principle. It is important that the instrument chosen to limit the use of landfill allows wastes diverted away from landfill to be managed in a way which is consistent with these principles.
Interface with existing controls and structures
3.4 The options were designed to mesh with existing controls and structures for the management of municipal waste as far as possible.
Licensing and planning regimes
3.5 Waste disposal activities at landfill sites have been subject to a licensing system since the Control of Pollution Act 1974. This system was replaced by the waste management licensing system under Part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Licences are issued by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (as the regulatory body in Scotland) and include input controls and operational conditions for the site. This is additional to any conditions imposed by the local authority through the planning permission for the site. The design of the options in Chapter 4 takes into account the existence of these regimes as far as possible.
Existing Local Authority arrangements for waste
3.6 Local authorities have a key role to play in the management of municipal waste. As well as their statutory responsibilities for waste collection, waste disposal and waste planning, they also have an important role to play in encouraging their local communities to practise sustainable waste management. Given this, they are in a unique position to help achieve the targets in the Landfill Directive, irrespective of which instrument is chosen to implement them.
3.7 Some local authorities may have agreed long term contracts with site operators for the landfill of municipal waste which could have an impact on the way they are able to implement the targets laid out in the landfill directive. The extent to which local authorities can comply with the possible options for limiting landfill without breaking contract conditions therefore needs to be considered.
3.8 Views on the extent to which extant contracts for landfill would be affected significantly by the options in Chapter 4 are invited, together with supporting data.
Timing of a statutory instrument to limit landfill
3.9 The first target is the least challenging in terms of the reduction in landfilling required, and some have questioned whether the UK would meet this target on the basis of existing action, and whether a statutory limit on landfill would only be needed to achieve the more challenging second and third targets.
3.10 Preliminary work by consultants indicates that existing actions such as waste minimisation incentives, the Packaging Regulations, trends in planning decisions, and lack of voidspace will act to limit to an extent the use of landfill for biodegradable municipal waste. However, there are significant uncertainties about the degree and timing of any reduction in landfill as a result of these combined actions, and their impact on the landfill of biodegradable municipal waste could be off-set by any future increase in municipal waste arisings. Moreover, we need to take action now to ensure that we meet the more challenging second and third targets in the Directive, and bring about the required step-change in municipal waste management.
3.11 It is therefore the Scottish Executive’s preliminary view that statutory action to limit the use of landfill will be needed to reach the first target. Views on this approach are invited.
Dividing up the targets within the UK
3.12 The targets in the Landfill Directive are set for the UK as a whole and need to be apportioned between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The portions assigned to the devolved administrations of the UK will be agreed at a UK-wide level and set out in secondary legislation by the UK Government. After they have been divided up, the devolved administrations have responsibility for meeting the targets in their areas: they have discretion as to how to do this.
3.13 Whatever instrument is chosen to limit the use of landfill for biodegradable municipal waste in each part of the UK, some method of apportioning the targets may be needed to ensure that the party upon which the instrument acts is allocated a share of the target. In this way, we can ensure that the individual targets for each part of the UK are not exceeded.
3.14 The method will depend to an extent upon the instrument used. The apportioning of the targets at the local level under each option is discussed further in Chapter 4.
"Policy Instruments to Implement the Proposed Landfill Directive BMSW Targets" by ECOTEC Research and Consulting Ltd. This work formed part of a larger consultancy with WS Atkins, CL Associates, Land Quality Management and Simmons and Simmons for DETR on the implementation of the Landfill Directive.
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