That’s the pithy title of a new consultation from Her Majesty’s Treasury which is lurking on their Budget 2009 pages.
The Landfill Tax was introduced in 1996 and has become the major driver behind most municipal waste reduction and recycling efforts. There a currently two rates of Landfill Tax: the standard rate applies to ’active’ wastes – basically stuff that decays, and the lower rate is for ‘inactive’ wastes, which don’t. The standard rate is currently £40 per tonne (and will rise to £74/tonne by 2014), while the lower rate is £2.50 per tonne and holding.
I shall resist the temptation to fill up my blog by nicking content from the consultation document, which is a surprisingly clear and easy read by the way, and simply note that HMT are looking to ‘modernise’ (i.e. change) the definition of a taxable disposal of waste at a landfill site, and the definiton of wastes that should qualify for the lower rate of tax.
It’s that second point which has brought the consultation to my desk, since slag and bottom ash from waste incineration are currently rated as ‘inert’ but may be reclassified as ‘active’ – which is going to make the economics of incineration a wee bit less attractive. Which is, in one sense, good, since incineration (‘energy recovery’) is pretty much the last resort before landfilling, according to the Waste Framework Directive’s waste hierarchy. On the other hand, it does come before landfilling, and I vaguely wonder whether the higher tax might make some incinerators uneconomic and lead to their feedstock just being landfilled as the cheaper option?
I have no evidence that it’s going to be a problem, I hasten to add. It was just a thought that crossed my mind this evening after everyone who I might have asked had already gone back to their homes and lives.
01 May 2009, 11:19 am
well it could have an influence yes, but generally a lot of IBA will be cleaned up and reused for agregate use – although with the current state of the construction industry how much is being used for that at present I’m not sure. Plants also generally pull out the ferrous and non-ferrous metals. So there may not be as much as you expect.
It could perversely help drive recycling – if you operate an incinerator you will want to generate as little ash as possible, which means pulling out non-burnable waste prior to it going into the plant. So you would prefer not to have metals or glass in there in the first place rather than work out how to extract them from the ash or sell it as agregate.