UK – The State of the Nation 2004: urgent action needed to prevent rubbish mountain: over 2000 new facilities required to cope with waste crisis

A report published by the UK Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) reveals that up to 2,300 new waste treatment facilities must be operational by 2020 to avoid a major crisis involving millions of tonnes of untreated waste. The introduction of these facilities, which could total up to £30 billion pounds, create thousands of jobs, and take five years to come on-line, are being stalled by a combination of public animosity, government prevarication and industry nervousness.



Nigel Mattravers, vice chairman of ICE’s Waste Management Board, says: “The annual volume of waste in this country is increasing every year, and every year we see more campaigns preventing the introduction of desperately needed facilities. Private companies are constantly fighting an uphill battle against local government and UK residents over the siting of plants and unless circumstances are improved, these companies may begin to turn away from an increasingly unprofitable industry. The general public need to be educated to allay their fears about the dangers of these facilities and understand that refusing them may lead to the much larger problem of millions of tonnes of rubbish with simply nowhere to go.”



The number of facilities, featured in ICE’s ‘State of the Nation 2004’ report, comes from recent industry projections concerning the quantity, costs, and types of plants desperately needed to supplement the current landfill system. Though historically preferred and previously the cheapest option, the strategy of cramming tonnes of rubbish into hundreds of large landfill sites is no longer environmentally sensible. The welcome EU landfill regulations are geared to reducing the amount of waste landfilled by imposing increasingly high taxes on excessive volumes. This method of waste disposal will, therefore, very soon cease to be economically viable.



Mattravers explains: “Britain, as is so often the case across all sectors, is miles behind continental Europe in waste management industry advancements. The need to move away from just stuffing our waste into the ground means that in six years time we will need to be where countries like Denmark and the Netherlands were a decade ago.



The use of facilities such as recycling and incineration can turn our nation’s problematic waste into a valuable resource. The technology is here and ready but progress is being blocked by lack of government leadership, industry uncertainty and an ill-informed public.”



As up to ten alternative facilities, such as composting, recycling and incineration, could be required to replace each landfill site, there is soon to be a devastating shortfall in disposal capability, which could total tens of millions of tonnes each year. The waste management industry is extremely concerned that although the government is well aware of the looming disaster, it is not doing enough to encourage investment in new plants that will create sustainable solutions and new employment opportunities.



Mattravers continues: “By just looking at the 30 million tonnes of municipal waste we leave outside our houses, most of which the UK currently sends to landfill, we can glimpse the magnitude of the problem. At our current level of waste production, meeting the first EU landfill target by 2010 could leave us with over 3 millions tonnes of waste a year that we cannot send to landfill sites. Meeting the second deadline, just three years later in 2013, could result in around 7.5 million tonnes left over per year and this figure could then grow to over 10 million tonnes by the final deadline of 2020. All these millions of tonnes of rubbish will need to be diverted to other treatment facilities that currently don’t exist.”



ICE claim that one major problem is the almost total lack of useful government statistics available to fully assess the level of the problem. A clear overview at a national level is vital to formulating an overall plan for the national rollou