Speaking to letsrecycle.com, the trade associations welcomed the plans in principle but questioned a number of elements of the proposals.
Dirk Hazell, chief executive of the ESA, said: “The ESA has no ideological objection to the introduction of landfill restrictions so long as they are signaled well in advance, are properly prioritised with good quality impact assessments and are accompanied by appropriate funding and planning regimes to enable required alternative infrastructure to be built and operated.
“Difficulties associated with apportioning responsibility for ensuring compliance will also need to be carefully considered during this consultation process.”
Mr Hazell's sentiments were echoed by Chris Murphy, deputy chief executive of the CIWM, who claimed that landfill bans could be used in “maintaining momentum” in attempts to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.
However, he warned that banning a wide range of materials from landfill would not be a “quick fix”. He said: “It will have a profound impact on the way waste is managed in the UK, from the point of generation through collection, treatment and recovery.
“The CIWM will be consulting with its members on critical issues in this debate including timing, where the points of responsibility for diverting these materials lie in the supply chain, how it is to be policed and how the necessary additional treatment infrastructure is to be funded and delivered.”
Cost
The issue of funding and delivering the additional infrastructure has been an area of particular concern for the Local Government Association (LGA) – which was quick to raise the concerns over the impact on local authority budgets in the wake of the consultation's publication.
Adding to its call yesterday for Defra to “think carefully” about where funding for additional infrastructure will come from, councillor Gary Porter, chair of the LGA's environment board, stressed that the cost of introducing bans should not be supplemented through council tax.
He said: “While the Government's landfill tax is taking ever more of council taxpayers' money, councils and council taxpayers' cannot be expected to pick up the bill for new technology to sort through millions of tonnes of rubbish.
“Defra should not put councils in a position where they have to issue residents with more bins or fine people for putting leftovers in the wrong place.”
Scope
Meanwhile, the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) – which represents council waste and recycling officers – stressed the need to divert material from landfill but also claimed it was important to stop material from entering the residual waste stream in the first instance.
The organistion pointed to materials such as aluminium as being opportune for a landfill ban, while it said it should continue to look at each material on its own merits to determine whether a ban was the best route.
Andrew Craig, principal policy officer at LARAC, told letsrecycle.com: “There are some materials that would be sensible and there is a bit of a question of how it would be enforced. I would think there are some materials that would be very sensible to do.”
Timing
The time it would take to introduce any bans has also been cause for concern in the waste and recycling sector, as well as among political parties, with the Conservatives calling for the bans to be introduced far enough in the future to enable waste treatment capacity to be developed.
Nick Herbert, shadow environment secretary, said: “We want to drive change faster and to see more waste being re-used and recycled as quickly as possible, but bans should not be imposed without providing businesses and councils long enough lead in times to plan for greener forms of waste disposal.”
The Waste & Resources Action Programme urged restraint in November 2009 over rushing restrictions and warned that the introduction of landfill bans before necessary infrastructure was developed could lead to an “awful mess” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Subscribe for free