Municipal waste growth assumptions set to be reviewed

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is proposing to change the baseline against which it estimates future waste levels by as much as 2% to take into account decreased arisings since 2008/09.

This means that current assumptions of a 1% growth in waste arisings each year could be reduced further – the assumption figure has already been reduced down this year, from 1.5% in January.

The move is significant because the data is used in projections for meeting the EU landfill diversion targets in 2013 and 2020 and because many long-term PFI contracts are based around assumptions in waste growth.

The revelation came at a meeting of Defra's Waste Stakeholder Group on July 8, which was set up in 2007 for members of the waste and recycling sector to provide advice and input into Defra's delivery of the Waste Strategy 2007.

Scenarios

Michael Sigsworth, who works on municipal waste policy at Defra, told the group that the answer might be to formulate two separate assumptions of waste growth, depending on varying scenarios.

He said: “We will review whether 1% is the right assumption going forward. One possible approach might be to have a two-tier projection; so have separate assumptions on waste growth up to 2013, and then for 2014-2020.”

Mr Sigsworth identified the economy, population, household growth, consumer spending and waste prevention measures as influencing factors affecting waste growth and indicated that overcapacity, as predicted earlier this year (see letsrecycle.com story), was favoured by the Department over the prospect of not meeting the EU targets.

He said: “A balance of risks need to be taken into account when projecting waste growth – the cost of not meeting the landfill directive targets is greater than the cost of over-capacity.”

Contracts

Also at the meeting, Michael Warhurst, from Friends of the Earth, claimed that municipal solid waste had been reducing even prior to the recession and renewed calls for PFI contracts to be of a shorter duration to allow councils more flexibility when developing waste infrastructure.

He said: “Based on figures from Coventry and Solihull PFI project recycling has been increasing faster than the modelling has predicted. Landfilling has reduced more than the PFI model has predicted.”