asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what work has been done by his Department on the use of pneumatic pipelines for the transmission of waste by capsules.

Work has been sponsored by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory into the technical feasibility of transporting waste materials in pneumatic pipeline systems. A working party set up by the four county councils in the Yorkshire and Humberside area, on which my Department is repre- casts of demand in 1981, 1991 and 2001 ; the actual and forecast future direct abstraction for industry :seated, has commissioned a specialist study of pipeline transport.

asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether a major pipeline is envisaged for the transmission of colliery spoil and flash from Yorkshire to the Humber estuary.

The possibility of a pipeline, together with its possible size and route, is one of several means of transporting solid wastes now being investigated by a working group representing waste disposal authorities in the Yorkshire and Humberside Region.