Community Waste - Recycling for Local Authorities


The market for the services of Materials Recycling Factories exists as a direct consequence of supranational policies (i.e. the European Commission’s 1999 Landfill Directive) that have led in turn to UK laws to implement measures to promote recycling (i.e. the 2002 Landfill Regulations). Statutory targets require the UK to divert increasing proportions of its Biodegradable Municipal Waste away from landfill, down from 75% of 1995 levels in 2010, to 50% in 2013 and to 35% in 2020. Due to increased arisings over that period, Defra project a total in excess of 25m t/pa of BMW that will have to be diverted by 2020. Itself facing fines of £0.5m per day from the EC, the UK government has backed up its targets with staged increases in Landfill Tax from £15 p/t in 2004/5 to £35 in 2011/12 and with the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, which places similar reduction targets on Local Authorities via specific tonnage targets for each of the		UK’s 121 Waste Disposal Authorities. The ultimate penalty of a £150 p/t fine for exceeding these targets can be mitigated by the tradability of LATS surpluses between WDA’s, but the looming threat of massive fines has certainly focused the minds of local politicians on the need to promote recycling. The recent NAO report estimates that, if no further action is taken beyond that already planned, local authorities will miss the 2010 target by 268,000 tonnes (equivalent to the waste of some 225,000 households) and the 2013 target by 1.4 million tonnes creating LATS fines rising from £40 to £205 million (Source: National Audit Office report on Landfill dated 26th July 2006).