The Landfill Directive And Its Implementation In The UK

Last updated: (February 2005)

Introduction

This Reference Note summarises the main elements embodied in the Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC, and the implications for waste management in the UK. The introduction of the Directive's provisions into law in England and Wales will require a new Statutory Instrument to limit the biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill. Separate but equivalent provisions will be needed for Scotland and Northern Ireland. An extended process of Consultation on the Directive is envisaged.

Background

The Landfill Directive became law on 16 July 1999 after a protracted drafting process. It must be transcribed into UK law by 16 July 2001. The aim of the Directive is "by way of stringent operational and technical requirements on the waste and landfills, to provide for measures, procedures and guidance to prevent, or reduce as far as possible, negative effects on the environment, in particular the pollution of surface water, groundwater, soil and air, and on the global environment, including the greenhouse effect, as well as any resulting risk to human health, from landfilling of waste, during the whole life-cycle of the landfill."

The protracted drafting phase has occurred because of significant differences in landfilling practice across Europe. The final version of the Directive will result in a number of changes to existing UK landfill practice. If you generate any waste that currently goes to landfill, you may need to be aware of the possible impact on your activities.

Main Elements Of The Directive

The Directive encompasses the requirements of Articles 3 and 4 of 75/442/EEC (The Framework Directive). It also covers the technical requirements for landfills covered by the IPPC Directive (96/61/EC). The Directive has 19 Articles and 3 Annexes covering General Requirements, Waste Acceptance Criteria, and Control and Monitoring.

Central to the Directive is the requirement (Article 5) that all Member States shall introduce measures to reduce the quantities of biodegradable material going to landfill, to 35% of 1995 levels by 2016. Up to 4 years' derogation from this is possible for countries currently landfilling >80% of wastes. The UK may seek this derogation. The full timetable for this and other aspects of the Directive is given below.

The Directive requires (Article 4) that all landfills are classed as one of the following:

• landfill for hazardous waste
• landfill for non-hazardous waste
• landfill for inert waste.

• liquid waste
• waste which is explosive, corrosive, oxidising, highly flammable or flammable
• hospital and other clinical wastes and other infectious wastes
• whole used tyres (from 2003) and shredded used tyres (from 2006) (tyres used as engineering material, bicycle tyres and tyres over 1.4 m diameter are excluded)
• any other type of waste, which does not fulfil acceptance criteria determined in accordance with the Directive's Annex II.

Only waste which has been treated to reduce the quantity or its effect on the environment can be landfilled (inert wastes excepted). Additionally, the dilution or mixture of waste solely to meet the waste acceptance criteria is prohibited.

A number of activities are exempted (Article 3):

• landspreading of sludges, eg sewage sludges and dredging sludges, for soil improvement
• the use of inert waste for redevelopment/restoration in landfills
• the deposit of non-hazardous dredging sludges alongside small waterways
• the deposit of unpolluted soil or of non-hazardous inert waste resulting from prospecting/mining.

Island and remote small landfills for non-hazardous or inert wastes can be excluded from many of the provisions. Existing landfills will be required to submit a Plan to bring their operations up to the Directive's standards, and, if this is accepted by the regulator, to make the agreed modifications by 2009 (Article 14).

Article 6 specifies wastes that can be assigned to classes of landfill. Only hazardous waste that fulfils the criteria set out in accordance with Annex II can be assigned to a hazardous landfill. Inert waste landfill sites shall be used only for inert waste, as defined in Article 2. Landfill for non-hazardous waste may be used for:

• Municipal waste.
• Non-hazardous waste complying with acceptance criteria given in Annex II.
• Stable, non-reactive hazardous wastes (eg solidified, vitrified), complying with the same criteria. These hazardous wastes cannot be deposited in cells for biodegradable non-hazardous waste.

Articles 7-9 specify requirements for Permit Applications, Permit Conditions, and Content. Article 10 imposes requirements for the landfill charges to reflect the full cost of operation and aftercare. Articles 11-13 encompass waste acceptance procedures, control and monitoring, and closure/aftercare. Articles 16 and 17 specify the functions and activities of a Committee (originally established under Directive 75/442/EEC) which will develop guidance on control, sampling and analysis techniques, criteria and test methods, this being required to give the technical Annexes substance.

Annex I lays down General Requirements for All Types of Landfilling, covering:

• choice of location with respect to population, geology, hydrogeology, ecology
• water ingress and leachate management
• use of geological and/or synthetic liners (and top liners following closure) for protection of soil and groundwater; permeability and thickness criteria are set for each class of landfill (see below).

The landfill must also have an effective leachate collection system, and landfills receiving biodegradable wastes must have a collection system for landfill gas, this being either used to produce energy or flared.

Measures are required to reduce nuisance from:

• odours and dust
• wind-blown materials
• noise and traffic
• birds, vermin and insects
• formation of aerosols
• fires.

There are also requirements regarding site security and stability of deposits.

In order to complete the Directive, a uniform waste classification and acceptance procedure has to be developed. This will be based around good knowledge of the composition, leachability, long-term behaviour and general properties of the waste to be landfilled, and, as far as possible will be based on standardised waste analysis methods and limit values for the properties of waste to be accepted. The Directive requires that definition of this procedure is to be completed by a Technical Committee by 2003. In particular, the work of the Committee has to take account of the leaching behaviour of wastes.

It is recognised that representative sampling of waste may pose serious problems. A European standard for sampling of waste will be developed. Until such a standard is approved by Member States, the Member States may apply national standards and procedures.

In advance of this work, Annex II lays down general principles to be used by Member States for acceptance of wastes for a particular landfill site. These should conform to the criteria given in the Hazardous Waste Directive (91/689/EEC) (HWD). This gives a list of waste types and also waste properties that define a waste as being hazardous. Wastes to be accepted at landfills can, therefore, be categorised as either inert, as defined in the Landfill Directive, or as non-hazardous/hazardous as determined by HWD criteria.

Until the analysis methods and limit values are defined by the Technical Committee, the Directive states that Member States should at least set national lists of waste to be accepted or refused at each class of landfill, or define the criteria required to be on such lists. Member States are required to send these lists, or the equivalent criteria, and the analysis methods and limit values, to the Commission within six months of the transposition of the Directive (ie January 2002) or whenever they are adopted at national level.

These lists or acceptance criteria should be used to establish site specific lists, ie the list of accepted waste specified in the site permit.

It is recognised that waste testing may be considered at three levels:

• basic characterisation, ie rigorous testing, usually in a laboratory, to determine all the important parameters of the waste
• compliance testing, ie periodic testing using simpler test methods to check that a waste complies with permit conditions
• on-site verification, ie very simple checks to confirm that the waste received is the same as the waste that has been tested more rigorously as above.

Until the test procedures are fully developed, only on-site verification is mandatory, with more rigorous testing being used where deemed necessary. More testing is generally required to confirm a waste is inert or non-hazardous, since the controls on its subsequent disposal are less stringent than for hazardous wastes.

Annex III outlines the necessary controls and monitoring for landfill operation and control phases, covering:

• use of meteorological data and water balance as a control method
• surface water and leachate sampling to ISO 5667-2 (1991)
• landfill gas sampling
• sampling for protection of groundwater to ISO 5667 part 11 (1993)
• setting trigger levels for action
• recommended parameters: ph, TOC, phenols, heavy metals, fluoride, AS, oil/hydrocarbons.

Implementation Timetable

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2006	2009	2016
Directive:
Published
In Force
Into UK Law
UK Strategy
Existing Landfill Plans
Committee:
Test Methods
Data Procedures
Waste Practices:
Hazwaste Procedures apply
no liquid waste
no hospital waste
no dilution
no whole tyres
no shredded tyres
no co-disposal
Biowaste reduced* to:							75%	50%	35%
* unless derogated for MSs landfilling >80%.

Implications For The UK

The overall aim of the Directive is, whilst recognising that there will always be a need for landfill disposal, to reduce as far as practicable the environmental impact of landfills, in terms of:

• avoiding the disposal of raw, untreated wastes which are likely to produce toxic/hazardous leachates
• reducing the use of landfill for biodegradable wastes, which produce both methane (adding substantially to the global warming problem) and strong leachates
• ensuring that landfills that are needed are engineered, monitored and controlled, both in operational and aftercare phases, as well as possible.

Although the Directive will prove far-reaching for many Member States, many of its provisions are already in place in the UK as a consequence of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and its daughter regulations, particularly the Special Waste Regulations 1996, the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994, the Environmental Protection (Duty of Care) Regulations 1991 and the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992. Taken together, these encompass the key requirements under the Landfill Directive for permitting, operational monitoring and aftercare following closure. The Special Waste Regulations embody the Hazardous Waste Directive and its principles.

For the UK, which currently landfills around 85% of its wastes, the major implications relate to what wastes may or may not be disposed of to landfill, and the implications for testing or pretreatment. The present view is that:

• The current practice of co-disposal of hazardous wastes with municipal wastes will cease. In future, all hazardous waste will go a designated hazardous waste landfill.
• Co-disposal of non-hazardous wastes with municipal solid waste (MSW) will still be permitted.
• Prohibition of several waste types, eg liquid waste, will impact on disposal options currently available.
• The biodegradable content of new landfills will drastically reduce. This will require major changes in the minimisation, segregation, and treatment/collection of the biodegradable content of current domestic and commercial wastes. This will impact strongly on the waste management industry.
• The requirements for good waste characterisation will have cost and practical implications. In particular, leaching tests are likely to be needed for wastes which may be classed as inert or non-hazardous, if they have not already been assigned to a national or EU list of such wastes.

The deliberations of the Technical Committee (CEN TC 308/5), which are to give 'teeth' to the technical Annexes of this Directive by providing guidance on waste sampling, analysis and test procedures, have been on-going since 1994 and are required under the Directive to be completed by July 2001. In the absence of guidance from the Committee, UK waste listings or the existing European Waste Catalogue will apply, together with the more generic waste categories in the Hazardous Waste Directive, as an aid to defining the category of a waste material.

What Happens Now?

The UK implementation of the Directive will be the subject of consultation by the DETR. This has already started with the publication of the Consultation Paper Limiting Landfill:
A Consultation Paper on limiting landfill to meet the EC Landfill Directive's targets
for the landfill of biodegradable municipal waste. (This complements the draft UK Strategy A Way with Waste, published in 1999.) This poses a range of questions, in particular, on the role of collection and disposal authorities and operators, the type of permitting system needed to ensure that the biodegradable waste reduction targets are met, and whether the UK should seek up to four years' derogation on the targets for biodegradable waste to landfill. Consultation was closed to responses on 29 November 1999.
Separate consultation on the wider implications of the Directive is proposed for early in 2000.

Future Implications

In view of the on-going consultation process, it is inappropriate to speculate too far in terms of the detailed implications. However, the trends that will occur as a result of the Directive, will be:

• less biodegradable waste going to landfill
• more restricted options, and probably cost, for disposal of more hazardous wastes
• pressure to use less hazardous raw materials, where possible
• more emphasis on minimising wastes at source, segregating necessary waste streams, and use of recycle/re-use/energy recovery options, ie much greater emphasis on use of the Hierarchy of Waste Management Options first promoted under IPC.

All companies in the UK should recognise the way in which EU Directives and consequent UK law are being linked towards an overall goal of Sustainability, and use of Best Available Techniques (BAT). The link between the Landfill Directive, the Hazardous Waste Directive and the IPPC Directive is evidence of this.

The most practical approach that can be adopted by most UK companies is to review their operations and the wastes they currently produce, and, if they have not already considered a waste minimisation programme, to do so now. This will offer the best prospect for reducing the cost and other impacts of the Landfill Directive on future operations.

Legislation

Copies of the Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC and other European Directives are obtainable from the Europa web site.

Copies of the Consultation Paper Limiting Landfill and the Strategy A Way with Waste are obtainable from the DERFA web site.