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Review fails to boost confidence in Government waste strategy
6 May 2004
Commenting on the Government's review of Environmental and Health Effects of Waste Management published today, Friends of the Earth's waste campaigner Anna Watson said:
"This report does little to increase confidence in the Government's waste strategy. It fails to adequately consider the environmental benefits of recycling, or the wider global environmental impacts of the way we manage our waste, and must not be used as a green light for increased incineration." "The UK has a miserable record on reducing waste and will almost certainly fail to meet the Government's targets of recycling a quarter of our domestic waste by 2005. Ministers must do more to boost recycling. And the Chancellor should tax incineration to discourage local authorities from burning precious resources that could be recycled." The Government's review fails to look at environmental impacts in three key areas:-
Climate change. The report underestimates the climate benefits of increasing recycling. Recycling processes were not analysed in the report, so no comparisons could be made with landfill or incineration. Other studies have shown that recycling results in far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. [1]
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Avoiding use of natural resources. The report did not look at the benefits of avoiding raw material use by recycling. The impact of waste goes far beyond how we throw it away. For every one tonne of product we buy, ten tonnes of materials have been used to make it.
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Global environmental impacts. The report only looked at local impacts close to waste management facilities. The UK's reliance on landfill and incineration has global environmental impacts too. Metal mining, for example, causes huge damage in developing countries, destroying biodiversity and using vast amounts of energy and water. Recycling more metal would reduce these impacts.
Friends of the Earth is calling for a tax on incineration to take account of its negative environmental impacts and create a level playing field for recycling. The Government's review reveals that:
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Incineration releases more nitrous oxides, hydrogen chloride, dioxins and furans than any other waste option. It is also an important source of particulates.
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Mercury emissions from incinerators contribute 20% of the local background concentrations of mercury.
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Incineration and landfill are the waste management options with most potential for negative environmental effects e.g. on soil, air and water quality.
Last week new Government figures revealed that household waste in England increased by 1.1 per cent in 2002/3 (over the previous year) and that only 14.5 per cent of household waste in England was recycled [2]. This means that the Government is unlikely to reach its target of recycling or composting at least 25 per cent of household waste by 2005 in England and Wales.
Notes
[1] US Environmental Protection Agency (2002) `Solid Waste Management and Greenhouse Gases', European Commission (2001) `Waste Management Options and Climate Change'.
[2] www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/ ¬
new_figures_show_governmen_29042004.html
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jun 2008
