Reducing landfill is a good thing to do - not some sort of EU green conspiracy

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There's a common line from those who dislike either or both of climate change policies and the EU that the encouragement of recycling and strategies to reduce the use of landfill are just another of those idiotic greeny-greeny nonsenses. We've read this from Christopher Booker, on the EU Referendum blog and now from James Delingpole in the Daily Mail:

Every year Britain produces about 70 million cubic metres of municipal waste, while it has more than 819 million cubic metres available for landfill — a figure that increases by 114 million cubic metres a year as more quarries and gravel pits are dug.

By far the most attractive and safe option would be to have these gaping holes filled with rubbish and covered over or reclaimed, so the landscape looks almost as it did before.

This would have knock-on benefits for the aggregates industry, which could offset its costs — as it did in the old days — with waste disposal.

It would release local councils from layer upon layer of regulatory bureaucracy. No longer would we have to waste time pointlessly sifting our rubbish. And it would, of course, bring an almost immediate end to fly-tipping.

This, after all, was the system that worked perfectly well for us before our politicians and the EU stuck their oars in. If only we had the will and the courage of our convictions, it could work just as well for us now.

My instant reaction (one that most Cullingworth residents would share) is 'there speaks a man who doesn't have two landfill sites in his village' but to explain the problem let's describe landfill and consider what we mean by 'municipal waste'.

Modern landfill can be described as finding a big enough hole in the ground, putting a very big plastic bag (a sophisticated, highly-engineered plastic bag to be sure but still a plastic bag) into the hole rather like you do with the bin in your kitchen, filling it up with rubbish until you can't get any more in and then covering it over. And then we wait thirty to fifty years with out fingers crossed hoping that big plastic bag doesn't split.

Then there's the stuff we put in the landfill. 'Domestic' waste they call it and it's all that stuff you put in your general waste bin. So there's fairly benign stuff like food scraps, paper and plastic. And a cocktail of nasty unpleasant chemicals - the bits of bleach you don't rinse out from the bottle, the heavy metals in the spent AA batteries, the residual contents of aerosols, shampoos and a bewildering variety of pharmaceuticals. Domestic waste is truly filthy stuff - poisonous, corrosive and polluting. As it rots is produces a very dangerous leachate - the big plastic bag is all that stops this leachate from polluting water supplies and contaminating land. Do you really think the best way to deal with this waste is to but it in a big plastic bag on the hill above Cullingworth?

Now Delingpole is right to criticise the EU's waste licensing regimes, to question how the ramping up of landfill charges contributes to illegal dumping and to condemn the nonsensical manner in which recyclers are prevented from exporting recovered goods or materials. But this doesn't change the fact that landfill isn't the best way to deal with hazardous waste. Nearly all of that 70 million cubic metres of trash local councils collect is pretty dangerous stuff. Simply dumping it into holes in the ground without pre-treatment or the reduction of pollution risk is a recipe for blighting communities. And the best way to reduce those risks is to promote recycling.

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NEF talking rubbish about rubbish...

View from the top of the restored Manywells landfill, Cullingworth

A consultant to the New Economics Foundation writes about Biffa's problems. And manages to entirely miss the point - or demonstrate having done any research into the company.

Biffa, the waste disposal company that carries out much local authority work, is profitable, admired by the unions that represent much of its 6,000-strong workforce, praised by local authorities like south Oxfordshire district council as innovative and efficient, and responsible over the years for developing a lot of the improvements that have spruced up UK rubbish collection and recycling.

Lets get some things clear about Biffa. For sure it does a lot of local authority work - outsourced contracts of one sort or another up and down the land. But this isn't where it has made its money - it makes that from filling up holes in the ground with rubbish not from collecting said rubbish from your doorstep. And while I applaud left-wing (so-called) economists when they enthuse about outsourcing, they really should check the facts first.

The cause of the problem? Here's a clue from a Telegraph report:

Biffa is more exposed to industrial waste, which makes up 80pc of its business, than municipal waste. The shift away from landfill and towards recycling has compounded its problems.

Trading has been made more difficult, too, thanks to a Government tax hike on companies still reliant on landfill, and the trend for big companies, such as Tesco, to deal with their own waste.

Last week HMRC closed a Landfill Tax loophole, which is expected to add extra strain on the company. 

Far from the company's problems being a consequence of evil capitalists, they are largely down to the ongoing landfill tax escalator - a rising charge on landfill intended to shift disposal away from holes in the ground and promote recycling. I'm sure NEF approves!

The NEF consultant wants "us" (I guess she means the government using taxpayers' money) to protect Biffa from these awful capitalists. We should have a plan (quite what it is the writer is unclear about). And we should learn:

The Biffa case study shouldn't be wasted. It is an object lesson in how we have let the market run our real economy – rather than, as it should be, the other way round.

Read this sentence a few times. It is a straightforward argument for "us" (the state, I guess) organising the "market". It is utter rubbish - Biffa's problems are a consequence of bad management (borrowing too much against future earnings) and government policy (making it uneconomic to stick rubbish in holes rather than burning it or recycling it). Nothing at all to do with "the market". Nothing.

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Buck Park Landfill - Denholme wins!

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One of the very first letters I wrote as a councillor back in 1995 related to the quarry at Buck Park in Denholme. At that time it seemed that the Council viewed landfill as a "solution" to the problem of over-quarrying at Buck Park. And so, a year or two later along came a planning application for the further extension of the quarry followed by landfilling with domestic waste.

At a meeting in Denholme Mechanics Institute it all seemed very calm as the plans were explained, lots of promises were made to the village and I sat there bemused as to the lack of opposition. It needed a spark and that came from a man called Dominic Clark who lived at Buck Park Farm right next to the proposed tip. From the back of the full hall his voice of opposition cut through the previous sense of acquiescence and we had a campaign.

Some twelve years later, it seems we might have finally got to the end of this story. After a planning refusal, an inspector granting permission, a judicial review and a high court case there arrived another planning application for landfill. Bradford Council refused this application and yesterday the Inspector published her findings from the appeal:

However, in a decision report published yesterday, the inspector said there was “no need” for a landfill site in the Bradford district, particularly in such a “sensitive location” as Buck Park.

There wasn't really a need twelve years ago but I know that, had Dominic not stood up and objected at the meeting all those years ago, we would have a landfill in Denholme. I know that without the campaigners - Sharon, Brian, Frances, Graham and many, many others - we would have a landfill in Denholme. And I know that without the villagers of Denholme raising thousands of pounds to pay for lawyers, expert witnesses and consultants we would have a land fill in Denholme.

I am thrilled for all those ordinary folk, none of them rich, none of them planning experts, whose efforts have stopped this landfill. Stopped it so the nesting peregrines can hover over the village, stopped it so the ravens, badgers and stoats have an undisturbed home. Stopped it so the village doesn't have hundreds of tip wagons thundering through every day.

Brilliant!

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Some carbon emissions for Cullingworth people to enjoy!

This is the chimney for the flare at Manywells, the former landfill site at Cullingworth. This is the end of a process whereby the methane gas generated by the decomposition is collected and burned at around 1000 degrees centigrade. When we visited a couple of days ago it was working - you could feel the heat as you stood near the chimney and see the hazy air above the top of the chimney.

For Cullingworth residents this is brilliant - mostly because we no longer have a closed landfill site that is unstable and contaminating the surround countryside. The beck is running clean and the only birds in evidence were swallows - no gulls, not one. Although the site remains closed - there's still some work going on and there remains some risks associated with gas - it is on a path towards being an asset to the villages rather than a smelly eyesore. At the minute it isn't going to win any prizes as a view but once the planting is completed and established it should quickly become more attractive.

And - probably in three years or so - we'll be able to get onto the top and enjoy this view:

Brilliant!

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A good day in Denholme

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Today, Bradford Council refused permission for the development of a landfill site at Buck Park Quarry near Denholme. In the greater scheme of things a rather minor decision but, for the village concerned, a day for smiles all round. For several reasons.

Firstly, landfill is dirty, messy and mostly unnecessary. The UK's preference for sticking rotting rubbish into holes in the ground rather than using more responsible (and economic) approaches such as waste to energy remains a mystery. I know that the greenies like Friends of the Earth seem to think that incineration is a greater sin than allowing the rubbish to rot slowly into the ground but, in truth it is the most environmentally damaging method of disposal.

Secondly, Denholme villagers campaigned long and hard against the proposals. A previous application was refused by Councillors (against the wishes of planning officers) and only granted permission at an appeal where - shamefully - Bradford Council refused to submit evidence on the specious grounds that they might lose and be awarded costs. To say this spat in the face of local people and the Councillors who voted to refuse permission is an understatement. For technical reasons the development was stopped as local people - again without Council support - took the developer to the High Court where they won. With the result being that the planning permission lapsed (and the Council then won a further High Court case brought by the developer).

Thirdly, the outcome today vindicates the only pledge I made to the electorate four years ago - that I would vote against any proposal or policy that would make landfill more likely even if that proposal was from my party. I did this - voting against the Council's waste management strategy in full council because my group had accepted a Liberal Democrat amendment ruling out waste to energy as a disposal option.

Denholme isn't free from the threat of landfill just yet - I fully expect the developer to appeal. But this time - after fifteen years of equivocation - the Council is on the side of local people. Fighting the appeal won't be down to local fundraising, the odd bit of pro bono work from lawyers and planners and the research efforts of residents. I have every hope that we will win the appeal and that, at last, we will see Denholme free from having the District's rotting rubbish dumped in this convenient hole in the ground.

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Manywells tip and the failings of environmental policies - why the Greens are wrong.

Back in the early 1990s planning permission was granted for a landfill site to be constructed in the disused Manywells Quarry on the hill above Cullingworth. Over the subsequent 9 years or so much of Bradford's household waste - the stuff you and I put in the bin every week - was dumped in the site. Now think for a few moments about what you throw away - the empty bleach bottles, the batteries, used medicines, cosmetics containers and unwanted food. Even the most assiduous of recyclers throws some of this away and the result is a poisonous mess of highly contaminated waste as dangerous in many ways as the 'hazardous' waste some campaigners get so bothered about.

Landfill sites for controlled waste (such as the stuff you throw away) are essentially a large plastic bag stuck in a hole in the ground - a sophisticated plastic bag to be sure - but still a pretty fair description. As the stuff placed in this bag rots it generates gas - methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulphur compounds in various mixes - and leachate (about which the less said the better - you really don't want to know what's in it). As you can see this isn't a very environmentally sustainable way to deal with waste - indeed landfill is considered the least sustainable means of dealing with our rubbish. As a result Government's across Europe have agreed to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill by 50% by 2012 (a target we'll almost certainly miss).

Cullingworth folk know about landfill - before Manywells they put up with the even larger and more contaminating Sugden End tip (which took over £5 million to remediate) - which explains why the recycling point in the village is one of the District's best used! And I have spent much of my time as a Councillor trying - often in vain - to get the Council to improve its waste strategy and to stop planner approving more of these hideous contaminating places.

So what's this got to do with the 'Greens'? Surely they agree with all this stuff about reducing waste? Well yes and no is the answer - the 'Greens' call for the reduction of waste to landfill, get all agitated about supermarket packaging, plastic bags and nappies but fail to answer the obvious question - what is the alternative? When asked this simple question they get all hypothetical and talk about 'zero waste strategies' as an aspiration rather than answering the question - what are going to do with all the rubbish we're generating NOW?

So just like the most sensible medium term approach to reducing carbon emissions is nuclear energy - which the 'Greens' (proving once again their anti-science credentials) don't like - the sensible medium term solution to the waste issue is to carry on the effective strategy of reduction, reuse and recycling and combine it with energy-from-waste via incineration or other heat treatment. The alternative is that we will go on using landfills - nasty, smelly, contaminating, greenhouse gas generating piles of rotting rubbish. The 'Greens' are wrong to oppose incineration because of their absolutist obsession with the (quite appealling but rather utopian) idea of 'zero waste'.