The figures form the key part of the new Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, which is the first tradable system limiting the waste going to landfill in the world. Councils in England will be set limits on the amount of biodegradable material they are allowed to send to landfill under the scheme, which begins in April next year.
The limits – or allowances – can be traded between waste disposal authorities, but the total amount of allowances handed out to councils decreases each year in line with the demands of the Landfill Directive.
In the first four years of the LATS system the total amount of municipal waste going to landfill in England should drop from about 15.2 million tonnes to 12.5 million tonnes. If the trading scheme is a long-term success, this should fall to just 5.2 million tonnes in the year 2020.
Defra's head of waste strategy, Lindsay Cornish, said the figures sent out by the Department this month are “not the final allocation of landfill allowances”, and that local authorities are invited to comment on their provisional allocation by October 8, 2004.
Ms Cornish said: “That final allocation will be made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs later in the year once we have considered any responses to this letter.”
- Click here for a list of provisional landfill allowances for English waste disposal authorities.
Councils have been given the opportunity to address any discrepancies in the calculations of their allowances, but Defra warned that if discrepancies for one council are altered, it could have an effect on all other councils' allocations. This means there could be a difference between the provisional allocations and final allocations even for councils that have not identified any errors in their provisional allocations, Defra said.
The government has also highlighted new regulations that came into force in late July, which amends the definition of a scheme year under LATS to April 1 to March 31. The Landfill (Scheme Year and Maximum Landfill Amount) Regulations 2004 also divide the UK's landfill targets into the four administrations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales:
| Maximum Amount (in tonnes) | |||
| Area | Target Year ending in 2010 | Target Year ending in 2013 | Target Year ending in 2020 |
| United Kingdom | 13,700,000 | 9,130,000 | 6,390,000 |
| England | 11,200,000 | 7,460,000 | 5,220,000 |
| Scotland | 1,320,000 | 880,000 | 620,000 |
| Wales | 710,000 | 470,000 | 330,000 |
| Northern Ireland | 470,000 | 320,000 | 220,000 |
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