Landfill tax since its inception in October 1996 can claim to be one of the most significant pieces of regulation ever implemented on our industry. Since the late 1990’s the volumes of material landfilled has reduced by 90% driven mostly by this tax.
From around 2005 up until today the standard landfill tax rate has created the conditions when allied to PFI funding to shift most of the residual waste from landfill to energy from waste. With 4 million tonnes of new incineration capacity presently in build the shift of biodegradable waste from landfill will soon complete. Therefore, the Government, as it starts to take a more holistic view of waste and doubles down on the need to inject life into recycling, has implemented a set of joined up regulation in the form of simpler recycling, EPR and DRS. On top of these packaging orientated initiatives, they have also recognised that there is still too much valuable material being sent to landfill and the exaggerated gap of £120 per tonne between standard and the lower rate tax has led to the development of a criminal element exploiting this huge difference through misdescription estimated to be at least £100 million annually.
The current consultation out for comment is clear and strong in its signal for this much needed change and proposes a new escalator which achieves parity in the landfill tax rates by 2030. On top of this is general equalisation it proposes to tackle the issue of “qualifying fines” sooner by 2027, a route where until greater scrutiny in the form of enhanced testing was introduced, unscrupulous landfill operators exploited the huge differential by misdescription between the rates. Two other presently qualifying materials have also been highlighted for change, “dredgings” mixed with a stabiliser such as APCr (incinerator fly ash) and water discount for waste containing excess water as part of the production process will have their exemptions removed.
By increasing costs through these tax changes allows operators to be able to invest in better solutions to “give waste a second life” and ensure that all potentially recyclable/reusable material is extracted, thereby ensuring greater circularity and on top of that the removal of an opportunity for criminals to exploit this obvious loophole.
