Landfills in the United Kingdom were historically the most commonly used option for waste disposal. Up until the 1980s, policies of successive governments had endorsed the "dilute and disperse" approach.[1] Britain has since adopted the appropriate European legislation and landfill sites are generally operated as full containment facilities. However, many dilute and disperse sites remain throughout Britain.
This policy is to be implemented through guidance set out in a revised series of waste management papers on landfill. In addition, the United Kingdom and many other countries are parties to the 1992 agreement on sustainable development at the Earth Summit. The United Kingdom's strategy for sustainable development was published in 1994. In the field of waste management, the strategy requires that the present generation should deal with the waste it produces and not leave problems to be dealt with by future generations (a generation is considered to be 30–50 years).
Taxation
In recognition of the increasing quantities of waste that are being disposed of to landfill the Government has, from October 1996, imposed a tax on certain types of waste deposited in landfill. Landfill operators licensed under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) or the Pollution Control & Local Government Order 1978 etc. were required to register their liability for the tax by 31 August 1996.
Landfill operators who also use their site for recycling, incineration or sorting waste can apply to have the relevant area designated a tax-free site. The tax is administered by HM Revenue & Customs (and is known as the landfill tax) and it has been estimated that the tax will raise approximately £500m a year for the exchequer.
The scope of the tax is set down in the Landfill Tax Regulations 1996 (SI 1527). The Landfill Tax (Contaminated Land) Order 1996 (SI 1529) sets out provisions for exempting waste generated as a result of cleaning up historically contaminated land. The tax is based on the weight of the waste to be deposited, thereby applying the polluter pays principle. It also aims to promote a more sustainable approach to waste management by providing an incentive to dispose of less waste and to recover more value from waste through recycling. All waste is taxed at £80.00 per tonne (as of April 2014), except for the following lower risk wastes where the tax is £2.50 per tonne:
Naturally occurring rocks and soils, sand, gravel, clean building or demolition stone, top soil, peat, silt and dredgings
Ceramic or cemented materials, glass, ceramics, concrete.
Processed or prepared mineral materials which have not been used or contaminated: moulding sands and clays, clay absorbents, manmade mineral fibres, silica and mica.
Furnace slags.
Low activity organic compounds.
Gypsum and calcium sulphate based plaster, if disposed of in a separate containment cell on a mixed landfill site or in an inactive only site.
Locations
Online sites record the locations of landfills in the United Kingdom:
Some expanding urban areas have encroached onto former landfills.[2]
Legislation and licensing
With implementation of the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 in May 1994 Part I of the Control of Pollution Act 1974 was finally replaced by Part II of the EPA. The EPA seeks to build on a system put in place by Control of Pollution Act (COPA) with stricter licensing controls and other provisions aimed at ensuring waste handling, disposal and recovery operations do not harm the environment. Responsibility for waste rests with the person who produces it together with everyone who handles it, right through to final disposal or reclamation. Only “fit and proper” persons may run waste sites and responsibility for a closed landfill site will continue until all risks of pollution or harm to human health and safety are past.
The licensing regime enables waste regulation authorities (WRAs) to refuse to accept the surrender of a license. Prior to enablement of the 1990 Act in May 1996, operators could hand back their licenses without restriction, leaving the public purse to cover any restoration and clean-up liabilities. Concern about the scale of those liabilities prompted operators to return licenses for nearly 25% of the waste disposal sites in England and Wales shortly before the new regime came into force. Now under section 39 of the 1990 Act, a WRA can not accept the surrender of a license unless it is satisfied that the condition of the land arising from its use for treating, keeping or disposing of waste is “unlikely” to cause environmental damage or harm human health.
The EC Landfill Directive (from Limiting Landfill: A Consultation paper on limiting landfill to meet the EC Landfill Directive's targets for the landfill of biodegradable municipal waste) Council Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of waste (better known as the Landfill Directive) was agreed in Europe at Council on 26 April 1999 and came into force in the EU on 16 July 2001. It was transposed into United Kingdom law in 2002. The full text of the Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities L182/1 on 16 July 1999 and is available on the Europa Website – a site dedicated to European law.
The Directive aims to harmonise controls on the landfill of waste throughout the European Union, and its main focus is on common standards for the design, operation, and aftercare of landfill sites. It also aims to reduce the amount of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, emitted from landfill sites. The United Kingdom has a wider legally binding target, agreed at Kyoto in December 1997, to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2008–2012.
With this latter aim in mind, the Directive sets three progressive targets for Member States to reduce the amount of their municipal biodegradable waste sent to landfill. Biodegradable waste was focused upon because it is the biodegradable element of waste which breaks down to produce methane. The targets are set for an important waste stream - biodegradable municipal waste. The Directive requires that the strategy for achieving the targets must also address the need to reduce all biodegradable waste going to landfill.
Targets
The targets contained in Article 5 of the Directive requires that:
1. Member States shall set up a national strategy for the implementation of the reduction of biodegradable waste going to landfills, not later than two years after the date laid down in Article 18(1) and notify the Commission of this strategy. This strategy should include measures to achieve the targets set out in paragraph 2 by means of in particular, recycling, composting, biogas production or materials/energy recovery.
2. This strategy shall ensure that:
(a) not later than 5 years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 75% of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised EUROSTAT data is available.
(b) not later than 8 years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 50% of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised EUROSTAT data is available.
(c) not later than 15 years after the date laid down in Article 18(1), biodegradable municipal waste going to landfills must be reduced to 35% of the total amount (by weight) of biodegradable municipal waste produced in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised EUROSTAT data is available.
Two years before the date referred to in paragraph (c) the Council shall re-examine the above target, on the basis of a report from the Commission on the practical experience gained by Member States in the pursuance of the targets laid down in paragraphs (a) and (b) accompanied, if appropriate, by a proposal with a view to confirming or amending this target in order to ensure a high level of environmental protection.
Member States which in 1995 or the latest year before 1995 for which standardised EUROSTAT data is available put more than 80% of their collected municipal waste to landfill may postpone the attainment of the targets set out in paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) by a period not exceeding four years...
Meeting the targets
The United Kingdom disposes of the vast majority of its municipal waste (over 85%) [this is out of date - most recent Eurostat data indicates 49% of waste landfilled, 25% recycled, 14% composted, 12% incinerated in 2011] by sending it to landfill, and meeting the targets presents a substantial challenge to this country. The targets in the EC Landfill Directive mean that the United Kingdom will have to take action on two levels.
i) Limit the use of landfill to ensure that no more than the allowed amount of biodegradable municipal waste is landfilled by the target dates.
ii) Build up alternatives to landfill to deal with the diverted waste, encourage the diversion of waste away from landfill towards these alternatives, and encourage initiatives which minimise the amount of biodegradable municipal waste produced.
The first action is the subject of the consultation document Limiting Landfill: A Consultation paper on limiting landfill to meet the EC Landfill Directive's targets for the landfill of biodegradable municipal waste. The targets in the Directive are legally binding on the United Kingdom and must be met. The Government considers that the scale of the change needed to meet the targets, and the relatively short timetable for bringing about this change, mean that a statutory instrument to limit the use of landfill for biodegradable municipal waste is essential. DETR aims to include proposals for a statutory limit for landfill in the final waste strategy for England.
The second action is dealt with in the draft waste strategy for England and Wales, A way with waste. The draft strategy has a strong presumption against landfill, and sets out goals for the sustainable management of municipal waste: recycling and composting 30% of household waste by 2010, and recovering 45% of municipal waste by the same date. The draft strategy also states that, by 2015, the Government expects that we will need to recover value from two thirds of our household waste, and that at least half of that will need to be through recycling or composting. It also reiterates the Government's support for the principle of Best Practicable Environmental Option, and the waste hierarchy, within which recycling and composting should be considered before recovery of energy from waste.
The Landfill Directive was implemented on 16 July 2001 and aims to improve standards and reduce negative effects on the environment, groundwater, surface waters, soil and air and overall limit the global impact of waste disposal. In England and Wales, the LFD has been implemented through Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations (PPC) to give a single regulatory regime. All existing and new landfill sites will be brought into this regime. Sites closed before 16 July 2001 remain within the original Waste Management Licensing (WML) regime. Existing landfills have a transitional period within which they must comply with the LFD, but are required to comply with certain aspects by key dates, and all aspects by 16 July 2007. All new sites must fully comply from the start.
The LFD requires that all sites are formally classified as either accepting wastes that are hazardous, non-hazardous or inert and that the engineered containment systems required for each classification of landfill are designed within a risk assessment framework (groundwater, landfill gas and stability). The LFD aims to prevent co-disposal of hazardous wastes from July 2004 and ban certain wastes to landfill e.g. tyres, liquid wastes, explosive, highly flammable, corrosive and oxidising wastes. Article 5 requires that the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill is reduced.
From 2004, pre-treatment of waste (physical, thermal, chemical or biological processes, including sorting to change waste characteristics) will be required to substantially reduce waste volume or hazardous nature of the waste, or to facilitate handling or to enhance the recovery potential of the waste. The LFD further requires that landfill gas will be used to generate non-fossil fuel derived energy wherever possible, that each site has a fully developed closure and aftercare plan and during the active phase and following closure, a monitoring regime to ensure groundwater quality is not compromised.
The objective of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) is to sustain surface water ecosystems and reverse recent trends in groundwater quality. In the context of landfill sites, groundwater protection measures require that there is no discharge of a prescribed range of substances (List I substances) to groundwater (saturated zone) and that formal compliance points below a landfill have been established.
List I substances
Organohalogen compounds (and substances which may form such compounds in the aquatic environment)
Organophosphorus compounds
Organotin compounds
Mercury and its compounds
Cadmium and its compounds
Cyanides
Substances which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic in or via the aquatic environment
Mineral oils and hydrocarbons
List II substances
The following metalloids and metals and their compounds: Zn (Zinc), Cu (Copper), Ni (Nickel), Cr (Chromium), Pb (Lead), Se (Selenium), As (Arsenic) , Sb (Antimony), Mo (Molybdenum), Ti (Titanium), Sn (Tin), Ba (Barium), Be (Beryllium), B (Boron), U (Uranium), V (Vanadium), Co (Cobalt), Th (Thallium), Te (Tellurium), Ag (Silver).
Biocides and their derivatives not appearing in List I
Substances which have a deleterious effect on the taste and/or odour of groundwater
Toxic or persistent organic compounds of silicon.
Inorganic compounds of phosphorus and elemental phosphorus
Fluorides
Ammonia and nitrites
The prevention of these listed substances being discharged to the ground will ensure zero pollution. Direct discharges (no unsaturated zone) of List I substances must be prevented. Indirect discharges of List I substances (via the unsaturated zone) can only be authorized if prior investigation shows that there will be no discharge to groundwater.
A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was simply left in piles or thrown into pits.
Waste (management) hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption from most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability. To be sustainable, waste management cannot be solved only with technical end-of-pipe solutions and an integrated approach is necessary.
Landfill gas is a mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill as they decompose organic waste, including for example, food waste and paper waste. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, with the remainder being mostly carbon dioxide. Trace amounts of other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) comprise the remainder (<1%). These trace gases include a large array of species, mainly simple hydrocarbons.
Articles related to waste management include:
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, as in a garbage disposal; the two are sometimes collected separately. In the European Union, the semantic definition is 'mixed municipal waste,' given waste code 20 03 01 in the European Waste Catalog. Although the waste may originate from a number of sources that has nothing to do with a municipality, the traditional role of municipalities in collecting and managing these kinds of waste have produced the particular etymology 'municipal.'
The Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 formerly applied in Great Britain to those persons involved in the collection, storage, treatment and disposal of controlled wastes. The regulations dictate the licensing of persons or businesses involved in the management of waste and relate directly to the licensing of a site or activity to carry out the management, processing and disposal of wastes. These activities were previously covered by provisions contained within the Control of Pollution Act 1974 (COPA). The regulations implement certain provisions of European Directive 91/156/EEC and are enacted under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The Landfill Directive, more formally Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999, is a European Union directive which regulates waste management of landfills in the European Union. It was to be implemented by EU Member States by 16 July 2001. Directive (EU) 2018/850 amended the 1999 directive with effect from 5 July 2020.
Biodegradable waste includes any organic matter in waste which can be broken down into carbon dioxide, water, methane, compost, humus, and simple organic molecules by micro-organisms and other living things by composting, aerobic digestion, anaerobic digestion or similar processes. It mainly includes kitchen waste, ash, soil, dung and other plant matter. In waste management, it also includes some inorganic materials which can be decomposed by bacteria. Such materials include gypsum and its products such as plasterboard and other simple sulfates which can be decomposed by sulfate reducing bacteria to yield hydrogen sulfide in anaerobic land-fill conditions.
A landfill tax or levy is a form of tax that is applied in some countries to increase the cost of landfill. The tax is typically levied in units of currency per unit of weight or volume. The tax is in addition to the overall cost of landfill and forms a proportion of the gate fee.
The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, LATS, is an initiative by the UK government, through DEFRA to help reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill.
The Waste Implementation Programme (WIP) was the UK Government's response to the package of strategic measures recommended by the Strategy Unit "Waste Not, Want Not" report published in 2002. The WIP was the route map of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, aimed at delivering the action required to meet the UK's legally binding targets under Article Five of the EU Landfill Directive related to reducing levels of biodegradable waste that are landfilled.
The Directive 2006/66/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 September 2006 on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators and repealing Directive 91/157/EEC, commonly known as the Battery Directive, regulates the manufacture and disposal of batteries in the European Union with the aim of "improving the environmental performance of batteries and accumulators".
In 2015, 43.5% of the United Kingdom's municipal waste was recycled, composted or broken down by anaerobic digestion. The majority of recycling undertaken in the United Kingdom is done by statutory authorities, although commercial and industrial waste is chiefly processed by private companies. Local Authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010. Recycling policy is devolved to the administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who set their own targets, but all statistics are reported to Eurostat.
The National Waste Strategy is a policy of the Parliament of the United Kingdom as well as the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The development of national waste strategies is intended to foster a move to sustainability in waste management within the United Kingdom.
Municipal solid waste (MSW) – more commonly known as trash or garbage – consists of everyday items people use and then throw away, such as product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing, bottles, food scraps and papers. In 2018, Americans generated about 265.3 million tonnes of waste. In the United States, landfills are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states' environmental agencies. Municipal solid waste landfills (MSWLF) are required to be designed to protect the environment from contaminants that may be present in the solid waste stream.
Waste management laws govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manner of waste, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment in a manner that may cause ecological or biological harm, and include laws designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing waste types and mandating transport, treatment, storage, and disposal practices.
The City of Oakland, California, adopted a Zero Waste Strategic Plan in 2006, detailing a road map for the city to follow toward the implementation of a Zero Waste System by 2020. As stated in a City Resolution, introduced by then Mayor Jerry Brown, Zero Waste principles:
It is estimated that 290 million tonnes of waste was produced in the United Kingdom in 2008 but volumes are declining. In 2012 municipal solid waste generation was almost 30 million tonnes, according to Waste Atlas Platform.
Turkey generates about 30 million tons of solid municipal waste per year; the annual amount of waste generated per capita amounts to about 400 kilograms. According to Waste Atlas, Turkey's waste collection coverage rate is 77%, whereas its unsound waste disposal rate is 69%. While the country has a strong legal framework in terms of laying down common provisions for waste management, the implementation process has been considered slow since the beginning of 1990s.
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