Environment Food and Rural Affairs written question – answered at on 26 November 2012.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what plans he has to assess the composition of household waste, including disposable nappies; if he will estimate the costs to local authorities of disposing of nappies; and if he will make a statement.
A DEFRA-commissioned report on the national compositional estimates for local authority collected waste in England in 2010-11 is currently being finalised. This will include a subcategory for disposable nappies. The last published report on national municipal waste compositional estimates was for 2006/07 (project WR1002). This is available on DEFRA's Science and Research Projects web pages and I have placed copies in the Libraries of both Houses.
Nappies are a small fraction of collected residual waste, and generally not collected separately, so it is not possible to produce specific costs. However, by using information from the Environment Agency's 2006 report, ‘An updated lifecycle assessment study for disposable and reusable nappies’ (available on the Environment Agency's website) and population estimates for England from the Office for National Statistics, we estimate that the total cost of disposing of disposable nappies in England was approximately £77 million in 2011. This estimate includes costs of £23 million for landfill or incineration gate fees, £25 million for landfill tax and £29 million for collection. Landfill tax is paid by local authorities to central Government.
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