Landfill tax set to rise to £64 a tonne

Landfill tax will increase by a further £8 a tonne from this April, as part of efforts by the Government to tackle the UK’s waste problem.
The increase will see the standard rate of landfill tax rise to £64 per tonne. Last year, the tax rose from £48 to £66 a tonne. The latest increase will come into effect on April 1 2012. A lower rate of £2.50 per tonne will apply to less polluting wastes as set out in the Landfill Tax (Qualifying Material) Order 2011, the HMRC said.

Each year the UK generates approximately 280 million tonnes of waste. Currently, the UK dumps 55 per cent of municipal waste into landfill sites, compared to a 40 per cent average across EU member states and Germany’s one per cent. Under the EU Landfill Directive, member states are required to cut the amount of biodegradable municipal waste they send to landfill to 50 per cent on 1995 levels by 2013 and 35 per cent by 2020.

The landfill tax is one tool the UK Government is using to catch up with the rest of Europe. However, it is also trying to encourage better waste management and recycling measures among households and businesses.

Improving recycling services for SMEs
According to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) there is the potential for businesses to save £23 billion through reducing waste and recycling more. Under its Waste Review, launched last summer, Defra is working with both the waste industry and local authorities to improve recycling services offered to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which find it hard to access suitable waste and recycling services.

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the main body representing the needs of the UK’s 4.8 million small businesses, waste is one of the issues most frequently raised by its members and it reports that 95 per cent of its members would recycle more if the opportunities to do so existed.

Responsibility Deal
The voluntary ‘Responsibility Deal’ between the Government and the waste and resources management sector, among other things is looking at how to best provide the right sort of information to smaller businesses on waste contracts. Work, meanwhile, has started on developing a set of best practice commitments for services to SMEs, and Defra has been looking at how to cut red tape for small businesses. Yesterday, it announced it would be slashing over 50 environmental regulations, including some relating to waste, which it claimed will save businesses £1 billion over next five years.

“We want to make it easier for businesses who want to do the right thing and recycle more to be able to do so,” a Defra spokesperson said. “We’re working with small businesses and the waste industry to get them access to more user-friendly waste management services and better advice on how to deal with their waste.”

Local authorities
The ‘Business Recycling and Waste Services Commitment’, meanwhile, aims to improve SMEs’ access to cost-effective recycling services from local authorities. It was launched last October and sets out 12 principles for business recycling and waste services. Seven local authorities have already signed up to the voluntary code and WRAP, which is leading on the initiative, organised a workshop at the end of February in London to share good practice and discuss the principles of the commitment with local authority officers and managers who are responsible for waste and recycling.

Steve Didsbury, head of Waste & Street Service London Borough of Bexley, one of the early signatories to the Commitment said: “The Business Recycling and Waste Services Commitment helped Bexley review what we were doing. We had concentrated on household collections, which continue very successfully at around a 53 per cent recycling rate. The Commitment helped focus our minds on the businesses in our borough and how we could support and encourage recycling in the business community.”

A spokesperson for WRAP said the organisation was working closely with the Local Government Association and Defra to “help others who’ve expressed interest and who tell us they are in the process of signing up”.

Source: Greenwise