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Reducing Landfill: A Landfill Allowance Scheme Consultation

1 BACKGROUND

1.1 The National Waste Plan 2003⁶ establishes the direction of the Scottish Executive’s policies for sustainable waste management. Key policies are:

• To increase the amount of waste collected by local authorities which is recycled or composted to 25% by 2006;
• To reduce landfilling of biodegradable waste collected by local authorities to 1.5 million tonnes per year by 2006;
• The roll-out of the Strategic Waste Fund, which is providing £230 million over three years to local authorities;
• The duty in the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 for local authorities to prepare Integrated Waste Management Plans (IWMPs). IWMPs, which will be produced following a Ministerial direction, will lay down waste targets for each local authority. The Scottish Executive will consult separately on proposals for IWMPs.

THE LANDFILL DIRECTIVE

1.2 As well as domestic targets, Scotland has to comply with EU legislation, including the Landfill Directive. The main aim of the Landfill Directive is to prevent or reduce as far as possible the negative effects of landfilling waste on the environment and human health.

1.3 The aspects of this Directive concerning the protection of human health and the environment through standards of regulating landfill sites in Scotland were subject to separate consultation⁷ and have now been addressed through the Landfill (Scotland) Regulations 2003⁸.

1.4 Article 5(2) of the Directive sets challenging targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW — see Annex C for details) being sent to landfill. As well as being the least sustainable waste disposal option available, landfilling biodegradable waste is also a major source of the greenhouse gas methane. The Directive allows member states which landfilled over 80% of their municipal waste in 1995 to postpone the targets by up to 4 years. The UK Government intends to use this 4 year derogation. Therefore for the UK, including Scotland, the targets set by the Directive are:

• By not later than 17 July 2010 to reduce the amount of BMW going to landfill to 75% of that produced in 1995;
• By not later than 17 July 2013 to reduce the amount of BMW going to landfill to 50% of that produced in 1995;
• By not later than 17 July 2020 to reduce the amount of BMW going to landfill to 35% of that produced in 1995.

As already outlined, Scotland also has a domestic target to reduce landfilling of biodegradable waste collected by local authorities to 1.5 million tonnes by 2006. This is equivalent to 85% of the level that went to landfill in 1995.

THE DECISION TO USE ALLOWANCES

1.5 In the light of responses to consultation papers, both the Scottish Executive and the UK Government have decided that a system of landfill allowances is the most effective means of implementing the Directive targets. The WET Act⁹ sets the framework for a landfill allowance scheme in the UK and provides for the details of the scheme to be established in Regulations. The Scottish Parliament passed a Sewel motion which allowed devolved matters to be covered in the WET Act. It will be for Scottish Ministers to set out the detail of the allowance scheme in Scotland in Regulations to be placed before the Scottish Parliament.

1.6 In addition to providing for the three EC target years, under section 2 of the WET Act, the UK government in Regulations may specify the total amount of BMW that each country in the UK can send to landfill in non-target years (2004-2009, 2011-2012 and 2014-2019). For Scotland, this power is to be exercised either by agreement with the Executive, or according to a fall-back rule in the WET Act that sets a straight-line reduction in allowances towards the next target year.

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