The landfill allowance scheme (LAS) was introduced in Wales in 2004 to curb biodegradable waste sent to landfill. Allowances for all 22 Welsh local authorities were calculated using data from 2001/02 as a baseline.
However, the Government launched a consultation in 2005 over plans to revise the LAS allocation from 2010/11 onwards following concerns that some councils had used a different interpretation of ‘municipal waste' to calculate their waste arisings.
Newport was issued 30,707 tonnes of allowances for 2009/10 under the original scheme but the revision would mean it can only send 25,752 tonnes of biodegradable waste to landfill in 2010/11.
This represents a larger decrease in allowances than in previous years. Allowances for Newport had steadily decreased by either 3,265 tonnes or 3,266 tonnes a year since the introduction of the scheme but the revision sees this figure fall by 4,980 tonnes for 2010/11.
In a bid to block the revisions, the city council applied for a judicial review of the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG)'s proposals in May 2009, claiming that it was being “penalised” and that it had geared its recycling and reduction efforts towards the initially calculated figures.
The judicial review will be heard at Cardiff Administrative Court on November 18 and is expected to last two days.
“Anomalies”
The WAG opted to recalculate the number of landfill allowances available to each council in March this year and base it on the amount of waste produced by councils in 2007/08.
Some councils had interpreted ‘municipal waste' to include waste such as construction and demolition and material from highways maintenance as municipal waste, which meant they received a larger number of allowances to cater for the additional non-municipal waste.
The WAG explained that councils were only supposed to include waste collected by a waste collection authority (WCA) or disposed of by a waste disposal authority (WDA) according to their role as defined by the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Further clarification on what qualifies as ‘municipal waste' was set out in a revised guidance for landfill allowances published by the Environment Agency in June 2006, which excluded construction and demolition waste from the definition.
Challenge
In the minutes of a waste services review in June, Newport city council said the change in the linear decrease would mean it was “unlikely to meet landfill allowance targets beyond 2012” – which it claimed could land it with fines in the region of £320,000.
The council claimed that this was even despite the current planned roll-out of food waste collections to 8,000 households across Newport in a bid to divert more biodegradable waste.
The council is also involved in a five council partnership called Prosiect Gwyrdd (Project Green) which intends to develop waste treatment and recycling infrastructure in South Wales beyond 2013. The project is set to receive £7.8 million-a-year in funding support from the WAG (see letsrecycle.com story).
A spokeswoman for the council told letsrecycle.com: “Newport city council has been successful in reducing the amount of municipal waste produced in the city and has thus followed the key principle in sustainable waste management – reduce.
“The council was dismayed to see that this success was penalised (this is only the council's opinion) in the recent review of landfill allowances by the Welsh Assembly Government.”
The council said it was left with “little alternative but to challenge this decision” given the size of the decrease and the timeframe within which it has to achieve it.
In 2008/09, Newport landfilled 25,951 tonnes of BMW which was 23.6% inside its landfill allowance allocation of 33,972 tonnes and it has allowances for the disposal of 30,707 tonnes of BMW in 2009/10.
Under the revised allocations, Newport would only be able to landfill 25,725 tonnes of waste in 2010/11 and this is planned to fall to 13,475 tonnes in 2019/2020.
Landfill
The WAG had set out statutory targets for the 22 councils in Wales up to 2009/10 and indicative allocations from 2010/11 to 2019/2020.
A spokesman for the WAG told letsrecycle.com: “The allocations that were made to local authorities were calculated using 'baseline' data contained in the Municipal Waste Management Data Survey Report for 2001/02.
“The decision of the Minister which is now being challenged was to rebase the allocation of landfill allowances for the years between 2010/11 and 2019/20 using the proportions of municipal waste arisings from each local authority in 2007/08.”
He added: “A hearing has been listed for the 18th November and is scheduled for two days.”
In a statement published in March this year, the Government that there were concerns about the timeframe for councils to adapt to the new landfill allowances.
It said: “There have been concerns expressed recently that given the final 2008/09 arisings data will not be published until October 2009, local authorities will have to wait until then before their statutory allowances for post 2009/10 are determined and communicated to them.
“This will allow them very little planning time to meet the allowances for 2010/11 and beyond.”
The landfill allowances scheme in Wales differs from the English model of the system in that the WAG opted not to implement trading arrangements in a bid to ensure local authorities invested early in landfill diversion.
The WAG told letsrecycle.com that it was unable to comment futher on the judicial review at this stage given the legal nature of the issue.
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