The amount and proportion of municipal waste landfilled, incinerated and recycled/composted from 1996-97 to 2006-07 are shown in Table 1. It is not possible to separately identify municipal waste sent for recycling in this country from that exported for recovery.
Waste to landfill
Total waste to landfill in England from 2000-01 to 2006 is shown in table 2. Industrial waste to landfill is not separately recorded; it is included in the ‘household, industrial and commercial’ category. Around a quarter of total waste is sent to landfill.
Waste incinerated
Waste inputs received by permitted incinerators, broken down by incinerator type for 2006 and 2007 is shown in table 3. Data are collated according to the type of waste the incinerator is permitted to burn, not the source sector of the waste and therefore, industrial waste cannot be separately identified. The figures include all incineration processes that take waste from off-site sources. It does not include processes that burn their own waste. A small proportion of total waste (around 2 per cent.) is managed by permitted incinerators.
Waste recycled/composted
Estimates for total waste recycled or composted in England in 1998-99, 2002-03, 2004 and 2006 are shown in table 4. Around 19.0 million tonnes of industrial waste were recycled/composted in 1998-99, and 18.7 million tonnes in 2002-03. This breakdown is not available for 2004 or 2006.
Waste exported
Data on shipments of notifiable wastes are collected by Government agencies in the UK to comply with the Basel Convention. Therefore, comprehensive data on shipments of these wastes are currently available. However, these wastes represent a very small (1 per cent.) proportion of total waste movements, and the majority is non-notifiable, or ‘green list’ waste. While it is not a requirement for the ‘green list’ forms to be reported to the Environment Agency in England and Wales, movements of ‘green list’ waste can be estimated from HM Revenue and Customs trade database. However, these data are indicative, since in many cases the categories under which trade data are reported do not differentiate between exported wastes and products. Estimates of non-notifiable waste movements from trade data have only been made for 2006.
Total waste exported from the UK in 2006 is estimated to have been approximately 13 million tonnes. Of this, around 4.7 million tonnes was exported to within the EU, and 8.4 million tonnes outside the EU. ‘Green list’ waste accounts for 99 per cent. of waste exports. Estimates by source sector are not available.
Thousand tonnes Landfill Incinerated Recycled/composted Total1 1996-97 20,630 2,207 1,750 24,588 1997-98 21,765 1,846 2,064 25,711 1998-99 21,507 2,296 2,530 26,342 1999-2000 22,199 2,395 3,117 27,715 2000-01 22,039 2,411 3,446 28,057 2001-02 22,421 2,447 3,921 28,905 2002-03 22,068 2,607 4,572 29,394 2003-04 20,936 2,604 5,537 29,114 2004-05 19,822 2,818 6,951 29,619 2005-06 17,873 2,859 7,799 28,726 2006-07 16,890 3,237 8,937 29,187
Landfill Incinerated Recycled/composted 1996-97 84 9 7 1997-98 85 7 8 1998-99 82 9 10 1999-2000 80 9 11 2000-01 79 9 12 2001-02 78 8 14 2002-03 75 9 16 2003-04 72 9 19 2004-05 67 10 23 2005-06 62 10 27 2006-07 58 11 31 1 Management methods other than landfill, incineration and recycling/composting have not been included, meaning that the totals will be slightly greater than the sum of the management routes. Source: Municipal waste management survey 1996-97 to 2003-04, WasteDataFlow from 2004-05.
Million tonnes 2000-01 2002-03 2004-05 2005 2006 Inert/C&D 31.2 31.2 26.8 27.3 27.5 Household, industrial and commercial 45.9 42.6 39.7 39.1 36.5 Hazardous 2.8 2.0 2.4 1.5 0.9 Total 79.9 75.7 68.9 67.9 64.9 Source: Returns made by landfill operators to the Environment Agency.
Thousand tonnes 2006 2007 Municipal 3,282 3,267 Sewage Sludge 196 191 Hazardous 134 133 Animal By-Product 803 799 Animal Carcass 23 19 Clinical 108 118 Co-Incineration of Hazardous Waste 211 273 Co-Incineration of Non Hazardous Waste 90 336 Total 4,848 5,136 Source: Environment Agency.
Waste recycled/composted (Million tonnes) Proportion of estimated total waste (Percentage) 1998-99 52.2 21 2002-03 80.9 30 2004 96.8 35 2006 112.1 42 Notes: Recycling is defined as the reprocessing in a production process of the waste materials for the original purpose, or for other purposes including organic recycling, but excluding energy recovery. This includes composting and household recycling. Sources: 1. Estimated from returns made by licensed waste operators to the Environment Agency survey of exempt sites in 2006. 2. National Packaging Waste Database estimates derived from the National Waste Production Survey 2002-03, Surveys of Alternatives to Primary Aggregates, Water UK.
Guidance on the duty for local authorities in two-tier areas to produce joint municipal waste management strategies is publicly available on DEFRA’s website.
The monitoring period for the zero waste projects will run until May 2009, at which point DEFRA will publish a report detailing the experiences of the six zero waste places. This will serve to highlight best practice in sustainable waste management and help to support local authorities to reduce the environmental impact of waste. We will consider further action in the light of this evaluation.
On 23 October, the DEFRA funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) hosted a special forum on international markets for recovered paper and plastics entitled “Recovered Materials: Navigating the Global Economic Slowdown”.
The papers discussed at this event are available on WRAP’s website.
The conclusion drawn was that while domestic demand for waste recyclates might be flat, there will still be a demand for waste material for recycling in overseas markets. However, prices are expected to be volatile in the short term, though they are likely to stabilise over time.