By Peter Ager

It is fair to say that United Kingdom waste management currently is in a state of flux. Our historic reliance on landfills must come to an end as waste and environmental directives from Europe force dynamic changes to the way our waste is managed. The legislative focus is increasingly targeting such areas as recycling (particularly in relation to household waste), high-technology incineration and landfill management, and producer responsibility.

Historically, waste management has been a rather ad hoc industry, with little or no formal strategic development. Now, however, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland all have launched waste strategies, principally to implement the waste directives emanating from Europe.

The European Landfill Directive, implemented in July 2001 and containing a significant number of pending targets, will require the biggest changes in waste management practices in the UK. The overall aims of the directive are to reduce the negative impacts of landfill sites on the environment by limiting the disposal of biodegradable MSW in landfills and diverting liquid and hazardous waste away from landfill. There is a requirement for all waste to be pretreated prior to landfill disposal, leading to an increased need for technological solutions and the development of appropriate facilities. Waste tyres will face a ban from landfill disposal by 2003 for whole tyres and 2006 for shredded tyres, and the ban on the disposal of liquid wastes, infectious clinical wastes, and certain types of hazardous waste to landfills will require alternative treatment capacity to manage these wastestreams. As landfill is the predominant method of disposal in the UK, the changes required by the directive certainly are going to be challenging for waste producers and waste managers alike.

Producer responsibility, which has achieved limited success in the UK with the implementation of the European Community Packaging Directive, is set to increase with the implementation of a number of policy initiatives and directives. The deliverability, for example, of the End of Life Vehicles Directive and the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive might hinge on the implementation of effective producer responsibility regulations at the national level. In addition, in an effort to attain higher levels of waste recycling, there might be a move toward implementing producer responsibility at the household level through variable charging. Whilst this may be a politically contentious issue, it is supported in principle by the waste industry.

Changes to the Special Waste Regulations, increased emission standards for incineration, future targets for battery recycling, and potential policy on the use of polyvinyl chloride will also require dynamic changes in the way that waste is currently managed.

Recognising the challenges these legislative pressures pose to current management practices, the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs held the first national Waste Summit in November 2001, providing key stakeholders in waste management with the opportunity to identify barriers and potential solutions to achieving more sustainable management of waste. Despite the diversity of stakeholders present, a consensus was reached in terms of the main barriers to progress, identifying the need to:

• move away from a "low-cost, low-expectation" approach to waste management,
• overcome the problems posed by insufficient funding for waste infrastructure development,
• address inadequacies in the planning process, and
• engage the public more effectively.

Following the Waste Summit, the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit engaged in a review of waste management, and its report Waste Not, Want Not recently has been published. With waste reduction and recycling at its core, identifying major issues and impediments to meeting national and international obligations, the review has proposed the development of appropriate economic and regulatory frameworks essential for success. Specific measures include significantly increasing the level of landfill tax, greater regulatory and innovative freedom for local authorities, more voluntary agreements with manufacturers, and financial incentives for green goods.

Key success measures have been identified and include:

• reducing the rate of household waste growth to 2% per year by the end of 2006,
• 50% of households to carry out home composting by 2006,
• the rollout of kerbside recycling collections,
• a 35% recycling target for household waste by 2010 and 45% by 2015, and
• 30% of collection authorities to have tried incentive-based schemes to encourage sound management of household waste by 2006/2007.

The recommendations in the report are extensive; however, their successful implementation relies on continued political will and adequate resourcing. Funding, fundamental to the delivery of more sustainable management of waste, has yet to be adequately addressed. Householders currently have little understanding of the costs, and the present charges are insufficient to meet the needs for infrastructure development. Unlike many other European countries and the US, there is not a system of direct or variable charging at the household level, but it is hoped that recommendations in the Strategy Unit report to give local government this freedom will be accepted centrally.

The landfill tax, the UK's first "green tax," whilst supported by the industry in principle, is criticised for having minimal impact on disposal costs as a result of the taxation level being set too low. As the tax level will only be £15.00 per tonne by 2005 it was anticipated that a doubling of the level of the tax would be needed to put the cost of landfill disposal on par with or higher than other waste management options, thereby presenting a more level playing field. However, the prebudget report for 2003 announced a rise of just £3.00 per tonne per year from 2005, with a long-term aim of the tax level reaching £35.00 per tonne. Long-term fiscal instruments are not necessarily in tune with short-term targets and will have little impact on bringing about the step changes necessary to progress waste management in the UK.

The recommendations in the report are being considered by a ministerial group, set up to develop the public expenditure programme, and necessary framework and final decisions were taken by April 2003. There is still everything to play for in terms of strategy development, and the waste management industry as a whole has to be ready to incorporate the changes and ensure that infrastructure is developed in a timely fashion in line with regulation and guidance. This requires all players to work together and to capitalise on the opportunities, but it is essential that policy-makers provide the lead.

Challenging times ahead? Yes, but exciting times too. We do have the capability, we do have the expertise, and therefore we can meet the challenges and progress toward more sustainable management of waste.

Peter Ager is president of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management in Northampton, UK.

MSW - July/August 2003