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EU landfill directive
The Landfill Directive represents a step change in the way we dispose of waste in this country and will help drive waste up the hierarchy through waste minimisation and increased levels of re-use, recycling and energy recovery.
The Directive's overall aim is "to prevent or reduce as far as possible negative effects on the environment, in particular the pollution of surface water, groundwater, soil and air, and on the global environment, including the greenhouse effect, as well as any resulting risk to human health, from the landfilling of waste, during the whole life-cycle of the landfill".
The Directive has provisions covering location of landfills, and technical and engineering requirements for aspects such as water control and leachate management, protection of soil and water and methane emissions control.
The Council Decision on Waste Acceptance Criteria, agreed in Council in December 2002, set out the standards that waste must meet to be accepted at one of the three classes of landfill - hazardous, non-hazardous or inert - prescribed by the Landfill Directive.
The requirements of the Directive were transposed into national legislation through the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002, subsequently amended in 2004 and 2005 to transpose the requirements of Council Decision 2003/33/EC on Waste Acceptance Criteria. The provisions were re-transposed as part of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2007.
More detailed information on the Directive, its impacts on the way we manage waste and how we are implementing its provisions are outlined in the landfill directive briefing paper (PDF 50 KB).
The Directive sets demanding targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal landfilled. The Landfill Allowances Trading Scheme was proposed for England to help the UK meet these targets. The allowances will be tradable between authorities allowing the burden of meeting the Landfill Directive's targets to be met in the most cost effective way.
The European Commission have published a report to the Council and the European Parliament on the national strategies for the reduction of biodegradable waste going to landfills pursuant to article 5(1) of the Directive. This report also describes progress towards meeting the targets in article 5(2) described above. See the pdf at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2005:0105:FIN:EN:PDF
Links
- Landfill directive
- Council Decision on Waste Acceptance Criteria
- Study on disamenity costs of landfill
- Environmental Permitting Programme
- Environmental Permitting Guidance for the Landfill Directive
- Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme
- House of Commons, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee - Fourth report of Session 2004-2005: waste policy and the Landfill Directive (PDF on Parliament website)
- Government response (PDF 200 KB) to the HC EFRA Committee's fourth report of Session 2004-2005 on waste policy and the Landfill Directive
- the Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003
Page last modified:
06 October 2009
Page published: 5 February 2003