The scheme, made possible by the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, which is currently progressing through Parliament, is the government's key measure for meeting the landfill diversion requirements of the European Landfill Directive.
Scheduled to start during 2004, it will involve local authorities set individual limits on the amount of biodegradable municipal waste they can send to landfill. These allowances will be tradable, which means an authority that cannot keep to its limits will be able to buy extra allowances from councils with landfill rates lower than their limit.
The government believes the scheme will represent the most flexible way for local authorities to enable the UK to reach the Landfill Directive's targets, 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
The overall amount of landfill allowances given to local authorities each year will be progressively lowered in line with these Landfill Directive targets.
A statement from the government said today: “Trading will help individual waste disposal authorities to find the most cost-effective way of diverting waste from landfill to reflect their local circumstances. Waste disposal authorities with low landfill diversion costs (cost of sending waste to incineration, recycling or composting) will have an incentive to divert as much BMW from landfill as possible and sell their surplus allowances to waste disposal authorities that face higher costs of diversion.”
Waste disposal authorities will be able to save unused allowances (banking) or bring forward part of their future allocation (borrowing), the government said, although it is likely that this will not be allowed in the years in which the UK must meet the Landfill Directive's targets.
The consultation will be seeking views on a number of aspects of the scheme administration including start dates, the method for calculating and allocating allowances, when to review the scheme, the penalty system and aspects of monitoring.
The consultation will run for twelve weeks, ending on November 21, 2003. Draft scheme regulations will be published in early October and views on these regulations will also be sought.
The consultation paper on the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme can be found on the DEFRA website.
- For more information on how the landfill allowance trading system might operate, see the letsrecycle.com legislation section.
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