European Standing Committee A
Wednesday 12 November 1997
[Mr. Peter Atkinson in the Chair]
Landfill of Waste
10.30 am
The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): The current proposals from the Commission follow the failure of an earlier attempt to legislate on landfill at a European level. My Department has two main concerns in relation to the proposals. First, better regulation of waste disposal is required to ensure high environmental standards--I am sure the Committee supports that--and, secondly, improved, coherent waste management is necessary--I am sure the Committee also supports that.
Historically, the suitability of our geology in the United Kingdom has meant that we have made great use of landfill as a means of waste disposal. We have considerable experience--more than most of our European partners--in soundly managed landfill. It is critical, however, to ensure that our regulatory regime provides the environment and the public with a high degree of protection and that policy at European and national levels encourages more sustainable waste management practices with an emphasis on the minimisation of waste and recycling.
We strongly support high environmental standards in the landfilling of waste and we have made that clear. We therefore endorse unequivocally those parts of the directive concerned with the establishment of strict regulatory standards. Specifically, that includes the articles dealing with permit arrangements, the covering of all costs, including environmental costs, involved in the setting up, operation, closure and aftercare of landfills, and procedures for the control and monitoring, closure and reporting on of sites. Those form the backbone of existing waste legislation in the United Kingdom. Ensuring that similar rules apply in other member states would help to provide better protection for the environment and a more accurate reflection of the full environmental cost of waste. We welcome both.
The Government are also keen to promote recycling and recovery initiatives. However, we are particularly concerned about the limits on the landfilling of biodegradable municipal waste in article 5 and acceptance criteria for waste in landfill, especially the prohibition of co-disposal and the requirement in article 6 to pre-treat all waste going to landfill. We are concerned that the directive should not reduce our ability to adopt an environmentally sensitive and sensible approach to waste management in each case based on current technology and risk assessment.
In the United Kingdom we currently landfill about 85 per cent. of municipal waste. We are concerned that the current proposals set deadlines that are too tight to be able to encourage sufficient significant increases in recycling. We would have to build a number of incinerators to meet limits. The capital costs for that have been estimated at between £3 billion and £7 billion. The lower end of that range assumes that recycling increases substantially from the low base bequeathed to us by our predecessors.
We are not convinced that incineration before landfilling is necessarily more sustainable than straightforward landfill in well-managed sites with good quality methane capture. There are certainly situations in which incineration with energy recovery makes sound environmental sense, but it must be carried out to the strictest environmental standards and must take place as part of an integrated strategy that encourages the minimisation and recycling of waste. Frankly, the dash to incineration required by the directive would not allow for that, which is a problem. Our preferred approach would be to remove that part of the directive. It would be more sensible to focus on the environmental harm that the directive aims to avoid--that is, methane emission--in line with current regulatory practice in the United Kingdom. It seems likely, however, that almost all other member states will accept the targets in principle. We may, therefore, need to consider a compromise solution to impose targets that can more sensibly be met.
Much in the directive makes sound environmental sense, and we shall encourage our partners to accept high environmental standards. We are less satisfied with the justification for some of the articles. We shall have to work hard to explain the UK point of view and reach an agreement that commands broad support. The directive would fill a long-standing gap in European waste legislation. I am confident that, preferably including the changes that we favour, the directive can make a positive contribution.
The Chairman: We now have until 11.30 am at the latest for questions to the Minister. May I remind hon. Members that questions should be brief and asked one at a time? Hon. Members may ask more than one question and there will be ample opportunity for questions to be answered.
Mr. Yeo: Does the Minister agree with the following statement in the explanatory memorandum:
``Member States should adopt a homogenous policy related to landfills and that standards should be harmonised throughout the Community''?
Mr. Meacher: We certainly want to see high environmental standards throughout the Community. One especially tragic example of the consequences of low standards was at La Coruna in Spain, where there was a landfill slide with devasting consequences. We have high environmental standards in Britain and it is in the interests of all inhabitants of the EC that those high standards should be disseminated throughout the Community.
Mr. Maclean: If the Minister accepts, as I believe he does, that it is legitimate or moral on environmental grounds to put waste into properly contained and managed holes in the ground, provided there is proper methane capture, why is he opposed to co-disposal? Surely there is no practical difference as long as the right wastes are put in the appropriate holes.
Mr. Meacher: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point, with which I have some sympathy. For those members of the Committee who are not familiar with the term, let me explain that co-disposal refers to the monitored treatment of certain industrial and commercial wastes, both liquid and solid, by interaction with biodegradable waste in a controlled landfill site. We believe that co-disposal makes sense. It uses degradation processes to render potentially hazardous waste harmless and, especially in light of the UK flushing bioreactor philosophy, that is a sensible way of dealing with hazardous waste. However, hardly any other member state holds that opinion, and we must take account of their views. Under article 5, biodegradable wastes must be reduced to no more than 75 per cent. by 2002, no more than 50 per cent. by 2005 and no more than 25 per cent. by 2010.
We have done our best to persuade other member states otherwise. At the Environmental Ministers' Council on 16-17 October, I set out our beliefs on why co-disposal made a lot of sense. Despite the forcefulness of my logic, those beliefs did not carry at the Council. We must take account of the fact that we may not succeed.
There is nothing wrong in our philosophy, but we must get the agreement of at least enough other member states if our view is to prevail. The matter remains under negotiation. There is still no common position, and probably there will be none under the Luxembourg presidency because the European Parliament has not yet given its opinion. I shall continue to propagate our view, but the right hon. Gentleman should understand the limits within which I can do that.
Mr. Gill: The Minister said that we have high standards in the United Kingdom. He must, therefore, be satisfied that domestic legislation is coping with all the problems that we might have. Does he feel that there is any specific area in which domestic legislation is not succeeding or is inadequate?
Mr. Meacher: We have high standards in the UK but that does not mean that all 499 sites taking biodegradable waste meet the highest standards that we want to propagate. In particular, 160 sites currently capture methane gas--52 to produce energy and just over 100 to flare the gas. We believe that that number can be increased substantially by 2010. However, some of our poorer landfill sites still fail in methane capture, and there is still leaking of pollutant leachate. One good aspect of the directive is that it will ensure that lower standards at a minority or our landfill sites must be improved. That is entirely in accord with our intentions.
Mr. Forth: Following on from the question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean), what will the Minister do if he cannot persuade his colleagues to see his point of view?
Mr. Meacher: We have considered that, of course. We must consider an extension of the time scales that I have outlined so that we can achieve an alternative to landfill, as the Commission proposes. Our concern is that we are being required to do that too prescriptively and within such tight time scales as to make it impossible to achieve the improvement that we want in recycling. Improvement in waste recycling has begun from what I have to say was an exceedingly low base under the previous Administration of about 2 per cent. in 1992. It is now up to about 6.5 per cent. to 7 per cent. and is continuing to improve. However, if 85 per cent. is landfilled and we have only the five years until 2002--or even the 13 years until 2010 when biodegradable waste must not be more than 25 per cent.--the goal of getting our recycling totals anywhere near the level required to avoid a huge increase in incineration cannot be achieved. If we cannot get the Commission and the Council to take account of what we really want--the removal of those targets from article 5--and to consider the real objective of the policy, which is to increase minimisation of recycling of waste, and if the Commission and Council still insist on prescriptive targets, we must at least try to extend the targets. We are in negotiation on that point.
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