UK National Waste Policy - A Bridge Half Built

In July 2002 the Zero Waste Charter was launched at the House of Commons, and has since received wide national and international backing. It argued that there was a growing environmental imperative for the reduction, recycling and composting of waste to reduce:

* the dangers to human health of incinerators and landfills

* CO2 emissions

* the pressure on virgin forests, on minerals and on rapidly degrading soils

The 10 point charter set out a strategy for moving to Zero Waste in the UK, notably by:

* maximising the recycling of dustbin and of bulky waste

* introducing the doorstep collection of organic waste and a composting infrastructure

* banning the thermal treatment of mixed waste and the landfilling of untreated biological waste

* limiting waste disposal authorities to 10 year contracts to ensure flexible facilities to complement the growth of recycling and composting

* introducing a disposal tax and earmarking its proceeds to promote Zero Waste

* accelerating and extending producer responsibility legislation

After the launch of the Charter, the Government's Strategy Unit supported many of the principles of the Charter. It led to a radical increase in the landfill tax. It supported increased rates of recycling and composting, secured additional funding for Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to engage in waste prevention and recycling, and for the first time recommended Mechanical and Biological Treatment as an alternative to incineration and landfill as a means of handling residual waste.

But it left a bridge half built. And policy has in the meantime slipped back to its previous groove: timid on targets, and a promoter of incineration.

Climate change will not be countered by limited ambition. Leading countries and regions in Europe are now recycling and composting 60% of their municipal waste. The UK remains a straggler. Recycling has doubled in four years, but still stands at no more than 23.5% in 2004/5. The current review by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) proposes a maximum target of 50% by 2020, a level that the best UK authority is already meeting. This sets the bar too low. It offers too little too late.

Holding back recycling and composting and promoting incineration will not reduce CO2 emissions. Yet this has been the consistent thread of Government policy since the Strategy Unit Review:

* The UK government is notorious in Europe for its opposition to the EU Bio waste directive, and has had it shelved

* The UK Animal By-Products Regulations have set levels of treatment way beyond those operating in the rest of the EU, raising the cost and discouraging the composting of domestic and commercial food waste

* The Government is pressing the EU Commission to redefine incineration as recovery rather than disposal

* Funds for private finance initiatives (PFI) for waste disposal contracts have been increased, encouraging large scale, capital intensive disposal technologies and 20 - 25 year contracts and reducing the incentive to maximise recycling

* In proposing long term national targets for incineration, but only modest short term recycling and composting targets for individual local authorities (a maximum of 30% for 2007/8) Government encourages disposal authorities to crowd out recycling and composting by the construction of large scale incinerators

* The escalating landfill tax coupled with Landfill Allowance Trading Schemes (LATS), without graduated taxes on other forms of disposal, encourages a switch from landfill to other disposal options rather than the maximisation of recycling and composting

* DEFRA has substituted a tick box sustainability appraisal for the Best Practical Environmental Option, which has facilitated proposals for incineration at public enquiries

* In spite of massive local opposition the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) has approved the proposal for a giant incinerator at Belvedere in East London (up to 800,000 tonnes, making it the largest incinerator in Europe), so creating a long term appetite for paper and plastic from Greater London, that should be recycled to save CO2 emissions. Belvedere's approval sets a precedent for giant schemes throughout the country

DEFRA's current Review is strong on the rhetoric of recycling, but it fails to will the means. It remains a charter for incineration not for Zero Waste. It argues for incineration as a means of countering climate change on two grounds: that it replaces methane producing landfill, and that it substitutes carbon neutral electricity production for fossil fuel power stations.

But it under-estimates:

* The loss of stored up energy embodied in recyclable materials prematurely incinerated (notably paper, aluminium, organic waste and plastic)

And it takes no account of:

* the capture of methane from landfill, which at the high rates assumed elsewhere by DEFRA makes landfill broadly comparable in terms of net CO2 emissions to electricity-only incineration

* the fact that electricity-only incinerators generate more fossil CO2 than gas fired power stations and more in total than coal power stations, while combined heat and power (CHP) or heat only incinerators are only marginally better than gas fired stations even if the heat is put to good use - not always possible even in areas like Scandinavia where the demand for heat is higher than in the UK

* the sequestration of carbon in depleting soils through the application of compost, or stabilised residues from MBT plants

* the lifecycle energy costs involved (and the waste generated) in the production of the incinerators themselves

Incinerators are producers of brown energy not green. They do not reduce green house gas emissions but increase them, both because of the overall CO2 emissions at their strikingly low current levels of efficiency of 25% or less, and because their destruction of the 'grey energy' embodied in the materials they burn increases the need for new energy intensive virgin materials.

The incentive structure and the process of decisions on disposal of waste are tilted towards incineration. Whereas stabilised residues from mechanical biological treatment (MBT) that are landfilled are subject to the full landfill tax, bottom ash from incinerators is classed as inert, and charged only £2 a tonne.

Far from facing a graduated tax as a means of disposal, incinerators receive more Government funding, and have greater access to private finance, than recycling or composting. Accordingly they remain the technologies of choice for disposal authorities which the Government have left with the decisive institutional power in municipal waste management.

Even where, because of public opposition, disposal authorities have fought shy of incineration or its modern variants pyrolysis and gasification, they have continued to negotiate 20-25 year inflexible contracts, incorporating Mechanical and Biological Treatment (MBT) plants, that produce 'refuse-derived fuel' as a feedstock. They have made MBT, a potentially more flexible means of stabilising residual organic waste and suitable for the transition to Zero Waste, into a processing arm for incineration, and a barrier rather than a support to Zero Waste strategies.

Zero Waste Alliance Proposals

Zero Waste policies have had to swim against the institutional and policy tide, rather than being carried along by it. The Zero Waste Alliance therefore urges the Government and local authorities to re-orient their policies in the direction of Zero Waste, in line with leading regional and national governments overseas, and further to the 10 points of the original charter, adopt the following specific measures:

1. Set long term recycling and composting targets of 75% for all local authorities by 2015, (and a minimum of 60% for each individual local authority) along with waste minimisation targets, to prevent their crowding out by local and regional long term disposal contracts.

2. Press the EU to introduce the Biowaste Directive, and its requirement for kerbside kitchen waste collections in all cities, towns and villages with over 1,500 population.

3. Switch the government subsidy of PFI schemes to the start up costs of food waste collection and composting, as part of the Treasury's forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review.

4. Extend the grant of carbon credits to recycling and composting to reflect their impact on the reduction of CO2 emissions generated by the production of virgin materials.

5. Extend Producer Responsibility Legislation to cover all materials in the household waste stream, and raise the targets for recycling of plastic packaging, glass and metals under existing legislation to those set by the leading countries in Europe.

6. Recognise incineration as disposal not recovery, in line with the EU Waste Framework Directive and rulings of the European Court of Justice.

7. Fund a major research programme to identify the hazards of nano particles, particulate aerosols, and brominated flame retardants that arise from the burning of mixed waste.

8. Introduce an incineration tax of at least £12 per tonne.

9. Charge incinerator bottom ash at the full level of landfill tax (rather than the £2 a tonne which it currently enjoys by virtue of its unwarranted classification as inert waste) and reduce the landfill tax to £6 a tonne for bio-degradable waste, stabilised to the levels set out in the 2nd draft of the Biowaste Directive.

10. Require compulsory insurance against future pollution and health claims for all disposal and recovery facilities.

The past four years have not been wasted. The ground for a radical increase in recycling and composting is now prepared. St Edmundsbury has become the first council to pass the 50% recycling and composting target. The leading continental and North American authorities are now reaching 75%. They mark the path to Zero Waste.

The imperative of climate change has, too, at last been unequivocally recognised by scientists, by the media and now by all major political parties. But it is not reflected in waste policy. In spite of the evidence that recycling and composting lead to major CO2 savings relative to incineration and landfill - WRAP estimates the savings of current levels of recycling and composting at 10-15 million tonnes of carbon equivalent per year7 and in spite of its higher CO2 emissions relative to gas fired electricity generation, the Government is still promoting incineration as a source of green energy.

What is required is return to the boldness of the Strategy Unit's policy, and a shift of finance and incentives towards composting and recycling. Climate Change policy calls for it. The Government should respect the evidence, free itself from the disposal centred waste industry, and complete the work that was left half finished after the Strategy Unit's Review.

Zero Waste Alliance

October 2006