WASTE: THE OPTIONS

Do you know the financial implications for your business of the doubling of the real cost of landfill between now and 1997?

Do you understand the factors behind that doubling and how they may be manipulated to reduce the impact on your business?

Landfill presently accounts for around 90% of controlled waste in the UK This means that around 90 - 100 million tonnes of waste are sent to landfill in the UK each year at approximately 4000 sites. Consequently, even with a trebling of other means of disposal, landfill will remain the most likely option for British industry for the next decade. But during that decade, its cost is expected to double. For UK plc, landfill is a fact of life, but one which is either ignored or sensationalised. Therefore, the facts on landfill must be made clear, and the myths dismissed. First, disposal by landfill is tightly regulated. Secondly, the industry has high standards of professionalism and landfill is now a scientific process using excellent engineering practice. A landfill site is an expensive, long term development and large UK operators have invested significant sums to ensure safe permanent sites. However, public concern must be understood. Serious contamination crises have occurred under fewer stringent laws in the US, and during the late 80s, the UK suffered from illegal fly-tipping. Allied to this, public understanding of the high safety standards of professional landfill techniques lags behind popular recognition of the link between dirt and disease. Members of the public who wish to reassure themselves that a local landfill operator does not conduct operations which might harm environmental health should check for a best practice policy. The scale and effect of landfill is misunderstood by the public. The popular view is that landfill sites are taking over precious unspoilt countryside and turning the UK into an enormous tip. Fact: landfill sites only cover an area equivalent to 1% of the total area covered by the nation' s car parks. Fact: landfill often creates a use for eyesores such as disused opencast mines or quarries, which are landscaped after use.

Best Practice for landfill operators To ensure safe treatment and disposal of waste To meet UK and EC standards on minimal release of contaminants to air or ground To undertake environmental impact assessments of all facilities To ensure high operational and engineering standards To be committed to the restoration and long term management of full landfill sites To promote minimisation and recycling of waste To develop facilities for reducing the toxicity of waste prior to landfill

What has to be done to gain permission to use a site for landfill?

Operating a landfill site requires both planning consent and licensing consent.

Planning consent

It is at the planning consultation stage that local residents' worries and concerns are addressed. A waste management firm applying for planning consent will provide an environmental impact study, which will include:

landscaping issues

containment of litter

site management, security, drainage, noise containment, operational hours

traffic impact

surveys of flora and fauna

Licensing consent

Licensing is a matter for discussion between the WRA, the NRA and other statutory consultees and the applicant. Items they will discuss include the geology, engineering standards, local need, and the type of waste being placed in the site.

Over the last five years, the average waiting time to obtain both planning and licensing consent has lengthened from a few months to over a year. Applications are often referred to the Secretary of State for final decision. This has created a pond of applications for landfill operator licences awaiting approval and has exacerbated - in certain regions - the growing landfill shortage.

What has to be done to prepare an approved site for use?

Although public opinion, shaped by the NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) syndrome, often suggests otherwise, landfilling is not the haphazard business of throwing rubbish into a convenient hole. A suitable site is prepared by qualified engineers to ensure that the surrounding environment will not be affected.

Protecting the water table

Before any waste enters the site, an engineered pit lining system is constructed to seal it from the surrounding rock, soil strata and water table. State-of-the-art landfill sites are designed to ensure that water entering the site is contained within the mass of materials stored. During use capping systems and small working faces limit the ingress of rain water.

The NRA has substantial powers, reinforced by recent case law, to prosecute polluters of groundwater supplies. Consequently, landfill operators are particularly attentive to the water and geological conditions around a potential site.

In the UK, professional waste companies work in line with the best Continental and US practices in banning the input of liquid material direct from tankers to landfill.

What safety procedures are required during the active life of a landfill site?

Managing a landfill site is a complex and scientific affair subject to rigorous scrutiny by the WRA and HSE.

Deposit
Rubbish is deposited in consistent even layers according to strict engineering procedures. These ensure safe decomposition and a stable body of refuse.

Monitoring and control
Decomposing waste can generate landfill gas (LFG) and noxious liquid (leachate). A professionally administered landfill is checked for potentially explosive gas migration. Ground water quality is also regularly monitored.

Methane from landfill
LFG is predominantly methane. Currently about 70% escapes into the atmosphere and the rest is either flared off or used for power generation.

Of the 66,000 MW total produced by the UK electricity industry in the UK, around 32MW is generated from LFC methane. Modern landfill construction and capping systems will improve this figure.

What after-care must be provided for full sites?

Landfill operators not only have to provide reassurance of minimal impact on local communities during a site's productive life, but for many years after it is full.

Restoration
Filled landfills offer opportunities for landscaping and development of public open space in areas of former industrial or mining dereliction. Restoration is now a key part of landfill management, since it returns sites to recreational or agricultural use. Thousands of trees are often planted on the perimeter of a large modern site.

Financial provision
The pollution risks associated with large bodies of waste do not disappear simply because a site is full. Legislation provides for the original operator to be held liable if a closed site develops problems. Responsible waste companies recognise that liabilities extend many decades after site closure.

Large blue chip operators in the waste sector are now making increasing balance sheet reserves for future liability provision over 30 or 40 years.

This may take the form of a long term financial guarantee. In some cases, a utility company parent for a waste operator provides the necessary surety that the operator is financially secure enough to face its liabilities, and will still be in existence decades after site closure.

Landfill - suitability for your company's waste

The Environmental Protection Agency imposes penalties on waste producers if they fail to choose a competent waste management company. Consequently, landfill is only a-reliable disposal option where the facility is run by a reputable waste management firm operating to high standards.

Landfill - value for money

Modern maintenance standards cannot be attained while cutting corners on costs. Economies in landfill, as in all waste management areas, are achieved through scale. A landfill operator - to offer both value for money and legal compliance must have integrated treatment, collection, transport, disposal and in house engineering elements. This offers not only competitive pricing but also a service tailored to the distinct needs of the waste producer.

Landfill - the future cost

At present landfill costs between £7 and £20 per tonne for disposal. This cost is expected to double before the end of the century. Five factors will drive up prices:

Constriction of supply
Landfill sites are a finite resource. New planning constraints mean that fewer sites can now be classed as suitable for landfill and planning consent is subject to ever lengthening scrutiny.

Increasing distances
There is no shortage of available excavated void each year, but the sites will be further and further away from centres of population.

Rising infrastructure and start-up costs
The costs incurred in gaining planning and licensing consent make it uneconomic to attempt development of sites below 1.5m cubic metres. A cost of £2m before the gate is opened for the first time is common. Thus, only large voids justify the risks.

Rising revenue and maintenance costs
Legislative and public initiatives have triggered growth in essential landfill management practices; installation and maintenance of artificial membrane liners, gas management systems, monitoring systems and sophisticated IT are the result of these statutory obligations.

Government fiscal policy
Rising public sentiment against landfill and in favour of minimisation and recycling has prompted the Government to consider instruments to encourage industry to consider alternatives before ultimate disposal. The Advisory Committee on Business in the Environment advised the Government in its 1991 report that ‘the price of landfill should be increased significantly to levels obtaining elsewhere in the EC'.

A recent report from the consultants Coopers & Lybrand examined a levy to be imposed on the operators of all landfill sites according to the weight of the waste landfilled. The Government is presently considering how to assess the likely impact of such a levy on the industrial sector.

Conclusion: landfill is here to stay

Landfill will remain for at least a decade the principal means for UK plc to dispose of its waste.

The cost of landfill is set to double during that period. For a UK company spending 1% of turnover on waste and enjoying profits of 5% on turnover, this could mean a 20% reduction in profit.

As public attention focuses increasingly on where waste comes from, where it goes, and who takes the decisions in that process, only companies that choose waste management firms with the highest standards can expect the double benefits of enjoying the favourable opinions of their own consumers and avoiding legal liability for their waste practices.

Waste: Somebody Else's Problem