Speaking at an Onyx Environment Trust event, which saw the launch of its website and annual report, deputy chief executive, John Kutner said: “We know of the criticism in the press of the landfill tax credit scheme, but we believe that this criticism is unfair and only a tiny minority of environmental bodies have not acted properly. The vast majority have operated legally and morally within the law.”
Mr Kutner argued that the 9 million Onyx Environmental Trust has contributed to over 170 projects in the past three years would not have been possible without the scheme. “The landfill tax credit scheme is invaluable in giving something back to the community. To do away with it would be a mistake.”
In Onyx Environmental Group’s annual report, chairman Lord Gregson said: “The media’s rigorous ‘naming and shaming’ of abusers of the landfill tax credit scheme has, at times been carried out with a disappointing lack of acknowledgement that it is an excellent scheme which delivers genuine improvements to communities across the UK.”
Onyx Environmental Trust’s flagship project for 2000 was the 1.5 million Portsmouth Gateway Project road-building and regeneration programme which included the Trisail, a 130 foot sculpture erected at the M27/M275 junction into the city.
But John Harman, chairman of the Environment Agency, who was also speaking at the event said that the tax was designed to change the behaviour of waste generators which it has failed to do. “Money raised by the tax needs to be much more highly focused on the Waste Strategy,” he said.
In view of this, Onyx Environmental Trust has introduced a 500,000 research fund to meet the implications of the Waste Strategy. The trust has made its first grant of 108,000 to the University of Southampton to examine: “The use of electrostatic techniques to identify, sort and recycle mixed industrial and municipal waste.”
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