London landfill rates increasing, Defra confirms

The increase came despite an apparent decline in London's municipal waste going to landfill over that period.

The new figures show that London's overall landfill use went up from 3,054,660 to 3,713,821 tonnes from 2003 to 2005.

Just ahead of the Parliamentary recess this week, Defra minister Joan Ruddock corrected figures issued by her predecessor Ben Bradshaw on the amount of London's waste going to landfill. Mr Bradshaw had originally issued figures showing that landfills taking London's waste took in 6.2 million tonnes of waste in 2003 and 7.7 million tonnes in 2005. However, it transpired that this was not just London's waste included within the figures.

She explained of the need to correct the figures: “I have been advised that data for eight of the nine sites provided was incorrect and reflected the total amount of waste landfilled, rather than waste that came solely from Greater London.”

Seven of the nine landfills taking in London's waste took more of the city's waste in 2005 compared to 2003, the exceptions being Stewartby landfill site in Bedfordshire and Brookhurstwood landfill in West Sussex.

The increase in London's overall waste to landfill goes against the apparent reduction in the city's municipal waste going to landfill, which fell from 3.24 million tonnes in 2001/02 to 2.69 million tonnes in 2005/06 according to Defra.

Mayor

At the time of the inquiry, London Mayor Ken Livingstone's officials claimed the drop in municipal waste going to landfill had been achieved by London boroughs abandoning their trade waste collections to the private sector (see letsrecycle.com story).

London boroughs, through their umbrella organisation London Councils, then accused the Mayor of “using bogus figures” to back up his arguments.

But, today a spokesperson for Mr Livingstone told letsrecycle.com that the corrected figures from Defra appeared to confirm his position. “These corrected figures reinforce the Mayor's concerns, that while it appears that municipal waste to landfill is going down, the amount of waste to landfill is going up,” the Mayor's spokesperson said.

The Mayor's spokesperson criticized Defra for having to correct its figures, saying that “continual corrections” led to a lack of confidence in data on waste.

But, the Mayor's spokesperson said of Mr Livingstone's concerns: “London's waste continues to go to landfill and the concern that the Mayor has is that some of this waste has been directed to landfill via the private commercial sector, sidestepping the European Union's Landfill Directive. As a result, the Mayor's officials have met with senior officials at the European Commission to raise concerns that some of London's local authorities may be flouting rules and the government is allowing this to happen.”