Waste Management in the Rural Sector

Royal Agricultural College

Friday 23 November

How waste is perceived

• Indifference – waste has always been back of house, low cost, low visibility

• Unglamorous - none of the attractions of IT, HR or finance

• Subsequently a low priority, no great need to change the way waste is handled.

• INCREASED COST HAS CHANGED PERCEPTIONS

Typical waste management c.2001

What changed?

• Legislation leading to an end to the UKs dependence on cheap access to landfill

• Landfill infrastructure running out fast

• Public perceptions of waste and recycling changing

The EU Landfill Directive 1999

• Made the environmental case for reducing landfill disposal.

• Set binding targets to reduce the volumes of waste member states send to landfill. Fiscal penalties for non-compliance

• Introduced new requirements for landfill site operators to make provision for maintenance of the sites long after operations cease

• Pre-treatment - finally introduced in the UK in October 2007

Packaging Waste Regulations

• Still widely misunderstood- some respected high profile names still getting caught

• Relatively easy for companies to buy their way out of their obligations

• Some companies who are operating excellent recycling schemes are falling foul of the regulations

• PRN system is seen by some as a tax on recycling

Landfill Tax

• Introduced in 1996 in response to the forthcoming LD

• Larger increases since 2007 budget – now a major driver of the increase in waste costs

• Politically neutral

• Still very low in UK relative to our EU neighbours - eg Ireland

Landfill Tax

• 2003 =£14• 2004 =£15• 2005 =£18• 2006 =£21• 2007 =£24• 2008 =£32• 2009 =£40• 2010 =£48• By 2012 total landfill costs could be well over £100 /

tonne

Public perception – image is everything

Recycling will cease to be optional

• Commercially essential to reduce costs

• Consumers will demand best practice

• Legislative barriers to old methods of disposal

Many firms still aren’t ready

• Research carried out by the EA recently suggests that a third of small businesses aren’t aware of the requirement to pre-treat their waste - that’s up to 1.6million firms who could be breaking the law and are potentially liable to EA fines.

Recycling is no longer optional

• A quote from an accountant in the Daily Telegraph in response to the pre-treatment laws

“…the first step towards making it illegal not to recycle”

• Daily Telegraph 15 November 2007

Recycling adds ££££s

• Every tonne of material removed from the landfill stream saves the organisation upwards of £50.00

• Some recyclable materials command revenue – cardboard and plastic, metals, textiles, EPS

Why would you put it into landfill?

What happens when there is too much recycling?

• Consumer demand for recycled products

• Most recyclables are derived from finite resources - oil, etc

• Pressure on land use for pulp – more profitable to grow food or fuel crops.

• Low cost of shipping recycled goods to areas of high demand (far east) from western consumer economies