Landfills in the United Kingdom

[1] Britain has since adopted the appropriate European legislation and landfill sites are generally operated as full containment facilities.

In order to apply the principles of the EC 5th Programme of Policy & Action in relation to the environment and sustainable development the Government has prepared a waste strategy.

This policy is to be implemented through guidance set out in a revised series of waste management papers on landfill.

Landfill operators licensed under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) or the Pollution Control & Local Government Order 1978 etc.

Prior to enablement of the 1990 Act in May 1996, operators could hand back their licenses without restriction, leaving the public purse to cover any restoration and clean-up liabilities.

Concern about the scale of those liabilities prompted operators to return licenses for nearly 25% of the waste disposal sites in England and Wales shortly before the new regime came into force.

Now under section 39 of the 1990 Act, a WRA can not accept the surrender of a license unless it is satisfied that the condition of the land arising from its use for treating, keeping or disposing of waste is “unlikely” to cause environmental damage or harm human health.

The United Kingdom has a wider legally binding target, agreed at Kyoto in December 1997, to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2008–2012.

With this latter aim in mind, the Directive sets three progressive targets for Member States to reduce the amount of their municipal biodegradable waste sent to landfill.

The Directive requires that the strategy for achieving the targets must also address the need to reduce all biodegradable waste going to landfill.

DETR aims to include proposals for a statutory limit for landfill in the final waste strategy for England.

The Landfill Directive was implemented on 16 July 2001 and aims to improve standards and reduce negative effects on the environment, groundwater, surface waters, soil and air and overall limit the global impact of waste disposal.

In England and Wales, the LFD has been implemented through Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations (PPC) to give a single regulatory regime.

The LFD further requires that landfill gas will be used to generate non-fossil fuel derived energy wherever possible, that each site has a fully developed closure and aftercare plan and during the active phase and following closure, a monitoring regime to ensure groundwater quality is not compromised.