Industry Legislation

Landfill Directive 1999

The Landfill Directive aims to prevent, or at least reduce as much as possible, the negative effects of landfill. Therefore these regulations will impact in a major way on the UK waste industry.

The directive requires;

Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment WEEE 2002

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive is designed to encourage and regulate the collection, reuse, recycling and recovery of waste electrical and electronic equipment, for which it sets targets.

Animal By-Products Regulations 2005

The Animal By-Products Regulations prohibit the landfill disposal of uncooked meat, fish and eggs. Uncooked meat, fish and eggs from retail outlets must be treated at an approved processing plant such as:

Climate Change Levy 2001

The Climate Change Levy (CCL) Regulations form part of the Governments strategy on meeting the Kyoto Agreement targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Industry sectors considered as heavy energy users are charged a levy on every kWh of electricity of 0.456p.

Environmental Protection Act

The Environmental Protection Act (EPA) makes provision for the control of pollution from certain industrial and other processes. The EPA (amended 1995) introduced a new waste licensing system, which was further enhanced in the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994.

The Act deals with issues relating to:

Producer Responsibility

The Producer Responsibility Regulations, known as the Packaging Waste Regulations, set targets for the recovery and recycling of packaging waste. These targets have had a large effect on recycling within the UK.

Landfill

Landfill is a disposal option that is increasingly becoming more costly than recycling. From April 2009 the standard landfill tax rate was £40 per tonne, which is set to continue to increase by £8 per tonne per year at least up until 2010/11.

The Landfill Regulations 2002

The Landfill Regulations have also enacted the complete banning of certain waste types in accordance with the EU Directive. The waste types banned are:

The Waste Incineration Regulations (for England & Wales) 2002

The Waste Incineration Regulations introduced stringent operating conditions and set minimum technical requirements for incinerators and co-incinerators, including large plant, such as municipal waste incinerators and cement kilns, and other smaller plant like clinical waste incinerators.