Council nimbyism and short-sighted government policy is in danger of turning Britain into a fly-tippers paradise. If the UK is to deal with its growing mountain of rubbish thousands of waste treatment facilities will have to be built by 2020, says Nigel Mattravers.
The annual volume of waste produced in the UK is staggering and is growing by over 3% every year. Currently it exceeds 400 million tonnes. To date, our preferred disposal strategy has been the simplest and cheapest option of transporting waste to a large number of landfill sites. Unsurprisingly, this is now becoming environmentally impractical and, sensibly, the EU is imposing regulations that will severely restrict this rather dated practice.
The problem is that landfill has been such an easy option for so long we have neglected to make any real progression towards an alternative. The result of this is a massive lack of waste treatment facilities, such as composting, recycling and energy-from-waste (incineration) plants, and a looming shortfall in disposal capability.
The recent State of the Nation report, produced by the Institution of Civil Engineers, reveals that up to 2,300 new facilities could be needed by 2020 in order to avoid a major crisis. However, the introduction of these facilities, which could total up to £30 billion pounds and create thousands of jobs, are being stalled by a combination of public animosity, government prevarication and industry nervousness.
The waste management industry is fighting an uphill battle to secure locations for plants as public campaigns pressure local authorities into rejecting planning applications. Seemingly oblivious to the scale of the problem, the government continues to introduce targets, such as those for recycling and composting, that are unrealistic and which the UK will struggle to meet without substantial guidance and investment.
The waste problem is not just one for the future. This July saw an introduction of a ban on the co-disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste to the same landfill site. The Environment Agency estimates that the number of commercially available landfill sites accepting hazardous waste will drop from 240 to just 18, with no sites at all in Wales or South East England. Without suitable facilities to deal with the waste we can expect to see a substantial increase in illegal fly-tipping and mass transportation of hazardous waste across the country.
Central government must take the lead in improving the planning process and educating the general public to allay their fears about the dangers of these facilities. It needs to be made very clear that failing to introduce new plants could lead to the much larger problem of millions of tonnes of rubbish with simply nowhere to go.
Nigel Mattravers is vice chairman of the waste management board at the Institution of Civil Engineers
