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Abstract
The European Union Landfill Directive calls on member states to reduce the amount of
biodegradable municipal solid waste disposed of to landfill. In addition, national waste
strategies will require the constituent parts of the United Kingdom to achieve increased
household waste recycling and recovery rates. Both these measures will require the develop-
ment of the infrastructure to support national high-intensity recycling and composting
schemes and the construction of at least 35 new municipal waste to energy incinerators.
Before plans can be developed for meeting the targets several areas relating to municipal
solid waste need to be clarified. Depending on the definition of municipal solid waste, its
composition and likely future growth rates the number of incinerators required could be up
to 170. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: European landfill directive; Incineration; Landfill; Municipal solid waste; Recycling; United
Kingdom
1. Introduction
The United Kingdom of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has
a total surface area of 245,800 km2 and a population of around 60 million. The
total municipal solid waste (MSW) production is about 32 million tonnes per year.
Some 85% of this MSW is generated in England by 85% of the UK population. The
national UK Government has the primary responsibility for making and imple-
menting laws, but recent measures have devolved responsibilities in certain areas
(including waste management) to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly
for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1908659015; fax: +44-1908-652192.
0921-3449/01/$ - see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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350 S. Burnley / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 32 (2001) 349–358
The year 1999– 2000 has seen the publication of waste strategies for England and
Wales (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, 2000), Scot-
land (SEPA, 1999) and Northern Ireland (Department of the Environment, 2000).
All three strategies call for a reduction of the amount of MSW sent for landfill
disposal and increases in waste recycling and recovery. The main aspects of each
strategy with respect to MSW are summarised in Table 1.
These strategies are also intended to meet the requirements of the European
Landfill Directive (Official Journal, 1999). Many of the Directive’s requirements are
already covered through existing UK legislation, but the principal article as far as
these strategies is concerned is Article 5. This article calls for a phased reduction in
the amount of biodegradable MSW (BMSW) disposed of to landfill:
to 75% of the amount produced in 1995 by the year 2010;
to 50% of the amount produced in 1995 by the year 2013;
to 35% of the amount produced in 1995 by the year 2020.
These dates take account of a four-year delay for member states (such as the UK)
that currently landfill over 80% of their MSW and it is understood that the UK
intends to make use of the delay.
A European Union Directive to control the landfilling of waste has been under
discussion for many years and was finally agreed in April 1999. The overall aim of
Table 1
United Kingdom waste strategies
Notes: Recycling includes collection and processing of materials for use by industry and compost
production. Recovery includes materials recycling, composting, incineration with energy recovery and
anaerobic digestion.
S. Burnley / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 32 (2001) 349–358 351
Table 2
Meeting the landfill directive and waste strategy targets
Note: The lower figures represent no growth in MSW generation and the higher figures represent an
annual growth rate of 3%.
In a paper on the Landfill Directive published before the national waste strategies
were finalised, Burnley et al. (1999) carried out a modelling exercise on meeting the
requirements of Article 5. The results suggested that the UK would have to divert
some 15 million tonnes per year of waste from landfill which would involve
introducing intensive household waste recycling schemes throughout the UK and
constructing up to 46 new MSW incinerators. These figures assume that there will
be no growth in MSW production over the next 20 years. If MSW production
grows at an annual growth rate of 3%, the number of new incineration plants
required would increase to around 130.
The model used has now been modified to take account of the recycling and
recovery targets specified in the strategy for England and Wales. If these targets are
applied to the whole UK, required diversion rates and numbers of new waste
management facilities are shown in Table 2. The ranges of values represent annual
growth rates in MSW production of zero and 3%.
352 S. Burnley / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 32 (2001) 349–358
The landfill directive must be incorporated into the national law of each EU
member state by July 2001 and the first tranche of BMSW targets must be met
within 5-9 years of this date. However, there are still a number of issues to be
resolved including the definitions of ‘‘MSW’’ and ‘‘biodegradable’’. The final
definitions adopted will have a significant effect on the way in which the directive
is implemented. In addition, as Table 2 shows, changes in the amount of MSW
produced will also have a profound impact on the amount of BMSW to be diverted
and the number of facilities required.
In the UK, MSW is currently defined in terms of the waste collection operation
rather than in terms of source or composition. MSW is generally defined as
‘‘household waste plus other waste of a similar composition collected by (or on
behalf of) the local authority’’ (Official Journal, 1999). In practice, this means that
if the waste generated by a particular commercial business is collected along with
household waste the material is classed as MSW. On the other hand, if this same
commercial waste is collected in a separate commercial waste collection round it
becomes ‘commercial waste’ and is not subject to the Directive.
Some European countries recognise this ambiguity and include at least some of
their commercial and office waste in their definition of MSW. If the UK was to
adopt this definition, the amount of MSW generated would rise from 32 to about
57 Mt per year. This assumes that MSW would comprise the current waste
classified as MSW plus the 23 Mt of ‘‘general commercial waste’’ identified by the
Environment Agency of England and Wales in its survey of commercial and
industrial waste and 2 million tonnes of ‘‘commercial waste’’ identified by Scottish
Environment Protection Agency. It is understood that the Environment Agency will
be publishing the results of its survey (Environment Agency, 2000), but a summary
table is including in the waste strategy for England and Wales.
If this additional non-household waste is included in the definition of MSW, the
amount of material to be diverted from landfill is increased. Table 3 shows the
increased recycling and incineration assuming no growth in MSW.
Making the most optimistic assumptions about commercial waste recycling
(diverting 12 million tonnes per year) the number of new incineration plants
required would be 65 (compared to 35 under the current definition of MSW).
However, if we assume that future recycling is concentrated on the household waste
stream (in order to meet the national targets) and there is no further increase in
non-household MSW recycling there will be a need to construct 97 new incineration
plants. Alternatively, we can assume that non-household MSW recycling increases
to the rates specified in the waste strategy. In this case, the number of new
incinerators is reduced to 64.
All these figures should be treated with caution. In particular, further surveys are
required to confirm the quantities and composition of general commercial waste.
S. Burnley / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 32 (2001) 349–358 353
Table 3
Adopting a wider definition of MSW
4.2. Biodegradability
Table 4
Municipal waste composition and biodegradability Burnley et al., 1999
determine the degradability of MSW and the separate components under aerobic
and anaerobic conditions (Young et al., 1988) and it is understood that the
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) is carrying
out research in this area.
The National Household Waste Analysis Project (NHWAP) (Environment
Agency, 1994a,b) has provided much useful information on the composition of part
of the MSW stream. However, further information is required to update the
existing data and also to provide compositional information on wastes delivered to
public waste disposal sites and the non-household parts of the MSW stream.
In practice, differences in the degradabilities of each component will not have a
large effect on the amounts of waste needed to be diverted because the required
diversions are all relative to the 1995 baseline figures and are dominated by the two
major biodegradable components paper and putrescible material. However, one
very important factor is the assumed degradability of composted MSW.
Waste composters in the UK generally aim to produce a high-grade product to
be used in soil conditioners and growing media aimed at the domestic and
professional horticultural markets. This involves using separately-collected wastes
from households, public waste disposal sites, municipal parks and food-processing
plants. An alternative, lower cost approach is to screen mixed MSW and compost
the fine organic-rich material. This has been done in large-scale experiments
reported by Wheeler (1993). The final product is contaminated with glass, plastics
and metals and also contains high levels of potentially toxic elements. However, this
compost could be used on landfill sites as cover material. If this practice is to be
adopted on a large scale (as some English local authorities are considering) it could
be argued that the composted cover material would not be classed as sending
BMSW to landfill.
This concept is being taken even further in the process known as mechanical and
biological treatment (MBT). In this process, raw waste is composted with minimal
pre-processing (screening or size reduction) and the resulting compost is landfilled.
This would result in some reduction in the potential for landfill gas production, but
the important questions are ‘how big would the reduction in uncontrolled landfill
gas releases be?’ and ‘would this composted waste be classed as ‘‘biodegradable’’
under the terms of the Directive?’ Some countries, such as Austria, are considering
MBT as a precursor to landfill. For example, Austria has strict limits on the
landfilling of organic wastes and normally no waste with an organic carbon content
in excess of 5% maybe landfilled. However, waste that has been subjected to MBT
may be landfilled if its calorific value is less than 6,000 kJ kg − 1 (typical values for
raw MSW are in the region of 10,000 kJ kg − 1, Binner et al., 1999).
If the Landfill Directive requirements could be met by subjecting mixed MSW to
MBP followed by landfilling, treating 14 million tonnes of waste a year in this way
would achieve the 2020 target. Such a measure would not contribute to the
recycling and recovery targets set in the national strategies, but would allow the
UK to meet its obligations to the EU and probably at a lower cost than the massive
increase in recycling, composting and incineration outlined above.
S. Burnley / Resources, Conser6ation and Recycling 32 (2001) 349–358 355
The figures in Table 2 show the importance of the growth in household waste on
the amounts of BMSW that the UK will have to divert from landfill. Reliable data
on MSW production have only been available in the recent past so it is difficult to
predict long term changes in MSW. However, one study by Hands et al. has
suggested that the national growth rate is in the region of 3% per year (Hands et
al., 1999). This overall figure hides the wide range of values with some local
authorities reporting current annual growth rates as high as 7% per year. Much can
be done to reduce the amount of waste produced and planning for a growth in
MSW may appear to be contrary to the principles of the waste management
hierarchy that places waste reduction at its head. However, it is prudent to allow
for such a growth because the UK is seeing a trend towards more households
(albeit with fewer residents per household). Waste production increases with
increasing numbers of households because many components in household waste
are largely independent of the number of people living in the household — for
example, newspapers, advertising mail, garden waste and some types of food
packaging. The growth in single person households means that the number of
households is rising above the rate expected due to rises in population (Parfitt et al.,
1996). Therefore, it is prudent to base future waste management needs on at least
a small growth in MSW.
6. Discussion
additional quantities of waste from landfill may not be justifiable. Whilst the final
decision is a policy one, it must be guided by sound science, engineering and
economics.
Determining the degradability of MSW and composted MSW by establishing
standard test regimes should be a relatively easy task, but the results of such a test
will have far-reaching implications. If composted MSW is defined as non-
biodegradable, the UK (and other member states) will be able to continue with a
landfill-based waste management strategy. On the other hand, if composted MSW
is still classed as biodegradable, the UK (and other member states) will have to
invest billions of Euros in expanding its recycling and incineration infrastructure.
Similarly, the growth rate of MSW must be established if national and local
government is to provide the correct number of waste management facilities.
Recent improvements in waste arisings and disposal statistics is helping in this area,
but there are still a number of uncertainties that need to be resolved.
7. Conclusions
In order to implement the Landfill Directive all parts of the UK will need to
develop intensive national recycling schemes and expand their incineration capacity.
Depending on the definition of MSW used, the recycling rates achieved and the
growth rate in MSW between 35 and 170 new energy from waste incinerators will
be required in the UK.
Large scale composting of MSW followed by landfill could provide one relatively
cheap way of complying with the Landfill Directive.
The use of tradable permits supported by life-cycle assessments should assist the
UK in meeting the Directive while allowing individual regions to develop waste
management strategies that follow the principle of BPEO.
There are a number of questions on the definition of MSW, the composition and
degradability of MSW and likely future growth rates in household and commercial
waste that must be answered before strategies can be developed to meet the
Directive. Further research and surveys of waste arisings and composition will be
necessary to provide these answers.
8. Disclaimer
The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone and not
necessarily those of the Open University.
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