In its recent Report on Delivering Sustainable Waste Management, the House of Commons Environment Transport and Regional Affairs Committee expresses a significant lack of confidence in measures to promote the re-use, recycling or composting of waste in the face of waste incineration (with energy recovery) as proposed in the Government's Waste Strategy 2000, published in May 2000.
England and Wales produces over 100 million tonnes of industrial, commercial and household waste each year, in addition to some 300 million tonnes each year of construction and demolition wastes, agricultural wastes, mining wastes, sewage sludge and dredged spoils. About two-thirds of industrial, commercial and household waste (and 23 out of 28 million tonnes of municipal waste) is landfilled. The Report concentrates on municipal waste. The imminent implementation of the EU Landfill Directive will require the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill to be reduced in stages so that by year 2020, the amount being landfilled will be 35 per cent of that being landfilled in 1995. This target is seen as ambitious in the light of lack of current progress and made even more daunting by the fact that there is a working assumption that the municipal waste stream will increase by 3 per cent a year (although in view of the lack of hard evidence the Report accepts this figure somewhat sceptically).
The major issue addressed in the Report is whether mechanisms are in place to facilitate re-use, recycling or composting to accommodate the waste diverted from landfill or whether incineration (with energy recovery) is the more likely outcome.
Various methods have been developed to determine which waste management option should be chosen in a given situation. The overriding and well rehearsed principle is that of the waste hierarchy (that is, waste minimisation followed by reduction, re-use, recovery and finally disposal) but at a local level the Government has recommended the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) determining the optimal method of waste management. The Environment Agency has developed a computer model entitled WISARD for determining BPEO which is based on a life cycle analysis. The Report throws doubt on BPEO and WISARD, since it is often found that a BPEO analysis locally can be at odds with national targets.
With regard to waste minimisation, the Report considers that the Government should adopt more rigorous methods to determine if and why there is an ongoing increase in the generation of municipal waste and to put more effort into achieving waste minimisation and resource efficiency. This could be achieved for example by fiscal measures and a more prescriptive and better developed principle of producer responsibility - where the manufacturer of a product is required to take responsibility (or at least in part) for the management of the waste from the product.
The Report highlights the national targets for recycling and composting (25 per cent of household waste by 2005, 30 per cent by 2010 and 33 per cent by 2015) as expressed in Waste Strategy 2000. It recognises that, in the light of the current level of recycling household waste being just 9 per cent, more funding for appropriate infrastructure at local authority level is necessary together with development of markets for recycled materials. A strengthening of the producer responsibility mechanism is also deemed necessary for these targets (regarded by the Report as "rather modest") to be reached. As rehearsed widely elsewhere, the development of such markets appears to be a major stumbling block for waste recycling. If they exist at all, they are embryonic and struggling. The Report recognises that if they are to succeed Government intervention by way of subsidies and other fiscal measures are needed.
The Report expresses concern about incineration, focusing on two main areas: the health effects and the impact that it would have on the prospects of other techniques such as recycling, re-use and minimisation. The Report acknowledges that the health effects from the incinerators are complex and recommends, amongst other things, the precautionary step that pre-separation of potentially hazardous materials should be mandatory.
Incinerators are not popular with the public either as a result of the perceived health risks, noise and disturbance and there are problems with planning issues. On average it takes about seven years to obtain the relevant permission and to build an incinerator. The Report appears gratified by these difficulties and seems to wish to augment them by exhorting the Government to refuse to accept energy from waste as a renewal form of energy. Furthermore, the Report proposes an incineration tax. It also suggests that new techniques such as pyrolysis, gasification and anaerobic digestion should be explored.
The Report recognises however that it is difficult to see how reducing dependence on landfilling can be achieved without the development of incineration. The capacity, infrastructure and other relevant Government measures simply do not exist currently. The challenge therefore, as expressed in the Report, is to keep the contribution of incineration to a reasonable level. Currently the average size of the incinerator is anything up to 600,000 tonnes of waste per year. The Report recommends that the building of incinerators above a capacity of 100,000 tonnes per annum should not be allowed, and that where possible, should be in the form of combined heat and power.
Overall, it is clear that the authors of the Report are extremely pessimistic about the future of recycling, re-use and composting of waste in the face of incineration, unless the Government takes strong measures to re-route developments in their direction.
For further information please contact Pamela Castle at pamela.castle@cms-cmck.com or on +44 (0)20 7367 2335.
