Government to launch major consultation on landfill waste

Food waste could be banned from landfill under proposals being put out for consultation by the Government today.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn is launching a consultation into preventing an array of different types of rubbish which could be recycled or reused from going into the ground.

The Environment Department (Defra) and the Welsh Assembly are looking at the case for landfill restrictions on paper and card, food, textiles, metals, wood, garden waste, glass, plastics, and electrical and electronic equipment.

Mr Benn is visiting Bywaters Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Bow to launch the consultation which is aimed at reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.

The Environment Secretary has said he does not think it is "sensible" for leftover food - which can be composted or turned into energy through a biological process known as anaerobic digestion - to be thrown into landfill.

The UK has targets from Europe for cutting the amount of biodegradable waste that ends up in landfill to 50% of 1995 levels by 2013 and 35% by 2020.

Other EU directives aim to reduce the amount of batteries and electrical and "white goods" such as fridges ending up in the ground.

And increasingly high landfill taxes, aimed at encouraging recycling and stopping rubbish ending up in the ground, means dumping household waste is an increasingly expensive option for councils.

Existing measures by councils to encourage people to reduce the amount of rubbish they create and to recycle more of their waste include separate food waste collections, fortnightly bin collections and recycling incentives schemes.

Earlier this month, Bristol City Council said it would be applying to Defra to be the first local authority to run an incentive scheme to encourage householders to reduce their black bin waste.

The Government pilot, introduced under the Climate Change Act, allows up to five councils to test ways of providing incentives to encourage people to reduce household waste.

The controversial "pay-as-you-throw" plans ran aground last year amid criticism that people who generated the most waste could be charged extra.

But Bristol council said it would not be charging people more if they did not manage to reduce the amount of rubbish they put out .

It is the only council to apply to take part in the scheme.

But a survey of local authorities which revealed that 2.6 million households now have bins with microchips, which can be used to weigh and record the amount of rubbish thrown away, prompted claims others were "surreptitiously" trying to bring in taxes on rubbish.

LGA chairman Gary Porter said the Government must not leave councils to bear the financial brunt of such a scheme.

He said: "Defra must not create a situation where every householder in the country is forced to have a separate bin for their food waste. It must be up to councils, working with their residents, to find the best ways of cutting rubbish going to landfill.

"Councils want to throw less rubbish in the ground because it is good for the environment and good for the council taxpayer.

"While councils are paying ever more to the Government in landfill tax, they cannot also be expected to pay for building and running new plants to sort banned materials and process food waste.

"Defra needs to think carefully about where the money to pay for a landfill ban will come from and how the ban will be policed. Councils do not want to be put in a position where they have to fine people for putting their leftovers in the wrong bin."