While the government may believe that many of the directive's measures are in place, the Landfill Directive will usher in a range of important new controls on landfill sites as well as ending the UK's longstanding system of co-disposal which sees hazardous waste disposed off with non-hazardous waste.

One of the biggest changes will be the simple fact that restrictions on the amount of material going to landfill will be imposed.

The Landfill Directive comes against a UK background where politicians say that the country cannot continue to rely on landfill as it has in the past, even if some senior figures in the waste management sector do not agree.

The waste strategy published in May this year by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions remarked that "we cannot continue to rely on landfill as we have done in the past. Landfilling wastes can be a wasted opportunity. If we are to deliver a more sustainable economy we must do more with less, and make better use of resources — and that means putting these materials to good use."

Targets
The directive, formally known as the EC Landfill Directive 1999/31, was agreed by the European Union's council of minister on April 26 1999 and came into force in the EU on 16 July 1999. It needs to be put into law in the UK no later than 16 July 2001 and the government has set out the following timetable:

• By 2010 to reduce biodegradable municipal waste landfilled to 75% of that produced in 1995
• By 2013 to reduce biodegradable municipal waste landfilled to 50% of that produced in 1995
• By 2020 to reduce biodegradable municipal waste landfilled to 35% of that produced in 1995.

What might be seen as amazingly large volumes of waste will need to be diverted away from landfill towards recycling, composting or other means of recovery. Assuming 60% of municipal waste is biodegradable, the UK needs to divert at least: 3.2 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste each year to meet the first target; 7.5 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste each year to meet the second target; and 10.1 million tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste each year to meet the third target.

The government accepts the figures may be wrong estimates. Much depends on whether waste grows at its current 3% and how much waste minimisation initiatives reduce it.

A key point here is that the government favours having a mechanism based on the amount of biodegradable municipal waste to be landfilled, rather than the amount of waste to be diverted away from landfill.

Permits
It will be achieved not through the landfill tax as might be expected, even though higher tax rates are expected to discourage landfilling. Rather, the government hopes that increased recycling will help, but more importantly local authorities will be given permits for the amount of material they are allowed to landfill.

This is likely to mean that the government draws up a list of all the councils in the UK. It then has to devise a system which says how many permits each council can have on grounds of location, population size, housing stock etc. The council would then be given a number of permits. If it used up all its permits to landfill then it would either have to buy more permits or recycle/compost more.

In contrast a council which had a good recycling rate might have a surplus of permits and so could sell them to other authorities that wanted more landfill.

A consultation paper is likely in November or December on this system and is likely to attract considerable controversy because of the historic and on-going debate between local authorities and the government over how the DETR determines the need of individual local authorities.

The next stage will be the need for some form of permit trading mechanism with the OM Environmental Exchange already expressing interest.