Clause 22 - ''Landfill''
Waste and Emissions Trading Bill [Lords]
8:55 am
Mr Michael Meacher (Minister of State (the Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Oldham West and Royton, Labour)
I am grateful for the good wishes from the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). I had a happy Easter, and I hope that other hon. Members did as well, but it is a pleasure to be back. While the amendments are simple, they could create considerable complexities in the operation of the allowance scheme. They would certainly place extra burdens on waste disposal authorities and monitoring authorities.
The definition ''landfill'' in the landfill directive, which is reflected in the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002, contains certain exclusions. Those exclude the temporary storage of waste if the site is used for storage for less than one year; the unloading of waste in order to permit the waste to be prepared for further transport or recovery, treatment or disposal elsewhere; the storage of waste, prior to recovery or treatment, for a period of less than three years and the storage of waste, prior to disposal, for a period of less than one year.
For the purposes of the allowance scheme, amendment No. 85 would amend the exclusion for the temporary storage of waste if the site were used for storage for less than a year. That exclusion would apply only if the waste were not subsequently sent to landfill at the same site. The amendment is unnecessary as that exclusion deals with sites used for temporary storage of waste that are not normally used for that purpose.
Amendment No. 15 would reduce to one year the exclusion for a site used for the storage of waste prior to recovery or treatment. The effect of the amendment would be that the storing of waste for a period of more than one year would amount to sending waste to landfill and would count against a waste disposal authority's allowance, even if that waste were destined for subsequent recovery or treatment.
Amendment No. 86 would similarly limit the exclusion for the storage of waste prior to disposal to storage to less than three months.
As I have repeatedly said, the aim of the landfill allowance scheme is to enable the UK to meet its targets under article 5(2) of the landfill directive. The
storage of waste for less than three years prior to treatment or recovery, and for less than a year prior to disposal, does not count towards those targets—that is the position in the article and the Bill. I simply tell the hon. Gentleman that I cannot see the sense in using stricter exclusions in the Bill; it would make the system unacceptably complex. At the very least, it would involve putting in place more complex recording procedures, because weighing at the point of entry to the site would not be adequate.
To put this in practical terms, a site that at present stores, say, newspapers collected from households prior to recycling, would, for the purposes of the landfill allowance scheme, be considered a landfill unless recycling took place within one year. If, for any reason, recycling were delayed for more than a year, all newspapers sent to the site would, for the purposes of the scheme, be recorded as having gone to landfill. That would be the case even if they were subsequently recycled and counted against a waste disposal authority's allowances. It would seem odd not to count them as having gone to landfill when considering whether the UK had met its targets under the landfill directive. The thrust of the amendments would make it more difficult for us to meet the directive's requirements, and I am not clear why that would be beneficial.
Amendment No. 87 relates to subsection (3), which provides that the fact that a deposit of waste is at the place of production does not prevent that site from being a landfill. The amendment would include storage in the provision, but that is unnecessary, because the word ''deposit'' would, I think, cover disposal or storage.
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman, in all his comments, has firmly committed himself to the waste strategy's overall targets. Many of his proposals have been sensible, and I have given them serious thought. On this occasion, however, they would gratuitously make life more difficult—even for landfill operators committed to the Bill's objective of increasing recycling and recovery. It is not helpful to change the dates in a way that makes meeting that objective less likely.
With that explanation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue the amendments.