Related links:

EU Landfill Directive Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002 Waste Strategy for England 2007

Historically, the UK has been heavily reliant on landfill: of a total 28.2 million tonnes of municipal waste produced in 2000/01, 79% - about 23 million tonnes - was landfilled. Just 12% was recycled or composted and 8% was incinerated with energy recovery.

However, the Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC, which was adopted by the European Union in 1999, has drastically changed the way the UK handles waste. The directive was brought into force in the UK on June 15 2002 as the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002, and was introduced bit-by-bit to give UK industry time to adapt.

The first requirement of the regulations was a ban on the co-disposal of hazardous waste with non-hazardous waste in landfills. Previously, UK landfills had accepted either inert materials only or both hazardous and non-hazardous material. From July 2004, 'non-hazardous' sites have been only allowed to accept non-hazardous waste, while 'hazardous' sites can accept only hazardous materials permitted by their licences.

The Directive has banned whole tyres from landfill since 2003, with this ban extending to shredded tyres from July 2006, while liquid wastes have been banned from landfill since October 2007.

The Directive also brings with it tighter site monitoring and engineering standards. This is supplemented by the new European Waste Catalogue, which has extended the range of materials classified as 'hazardous', and the Waste Acceptance Criteria, which has introduced stringent pre-treatment requirements.

Since October 2007, the pre-treatment requirements of the Landfill Directive have included the need to treat all non-hazardous waste (including commercial and industrial) before it can go to landfill. This treatment must include a physical, thermal, chemical or biological process - which can include sorting - to change the characteristics of the waste to either reduce its volume, reduce its hazardous nature, facilitate its handling, or enhance its recovery.

Compared to industrial and commercial waste the municipal waste stream is relatively small. But the municipal fraction has traditionally trailed behind in terms of recycling and recovery. In addition to this, about 68% of municipal household waste is biodegradable, and therefore a major contributor to the production of the greenhouse gas methane, when landfilled.

For these reasons, the Landfill Directive focuses on reducing the impact of municipal waste. Because the UK is so dependent on landfill, it has been allowed an extra four years to meet European targets, leading to the following goals based on the weight of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) landfilled in 1995:

• Reduce BMW landfilled to 75% of 1995 level by 2010
• Reduce BMW landfilled to 50% of 1995 level by 2013
• Reduce BMW landfilled to 35% of 1995 level by 2020

In addition, the government's Waste Strategy for England 2007 sets the following timetable:

• recycling and composting of household waste - at least 40% by 2010, 45% by 2015 and 50% 2020;
• recovery of municipal waste - 53% by 2010, 67% by 2015 and 75% by 2020.

The government hopes that recycling-focused legislation such as the Packaging Waste Directive will help to achieve these goals, as will the annual increase in the Landfill Tax of £8 per tonne per year from 2008. Then, the government hopes, composting, recycling and incineration will together eventually "crowd out" landfill.

For waste disposal authorities, the main target driver set by the government to reach Landfill Directive targets is the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS). Since April 2005, English waste disposal authorities have to contend with strict limits on the landfilling of biodegradable municipal waste. These limits can be extended by the trading of surplus allowances between authorities.

March 2008: The Environment Agency has said the UK must cut down on waste production levels since it has limited consented landfill capacity. March 2008: Landfill operators will be expected to provide written evidence from their customers that their waste has been pre-treated from April 30, as enforcement of the pre-treatment regulations is tightened. March 2008: Chancellor Alistair Darling has confirmed within his Budget that the Landfill Tax will rise by a third to £32 per tonne from April 1.