MPs slate government on landfill diversion

The £131m has been aimed at developing markets for recycled materials, as well as helping councils to introduce kerbside collections, provide guidance to households, and run public awareness campaigns.

The committee said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had been "slow to take action" to reduce England's reliance on sending biodegradable materials to landfill.

Defra did not take any "effective action" until 2003, four years after the introduction of the European Union Landfill Directive, which set maximum allowances for the tonnage of biodegradable municipal waste that each member state could send to landfill from 2006 onwards.

There was a reduction of 2.3 million tonnes in the amount of waste sent to landfill in the UK from 2003/04 to 2005/06, but a further reduction of 4.9 million tonnes a year is needed to meet the directive's 2013 targets.

Much of the progress since 2003 in reducing biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill had been "largely due to the enthusiasm and commitment of the public" to recycle, the report said.

However, while 57% of the public were "committed recyclers", people often found it confusing to determine what items they could put in different bins.

Also, an "emphasis on recycling alone" was unlikely to enable England to comply with the Landfill Directive, they said.

An infrastructure capable of processing up to 15 million tonnes of waste each year is the "only other major alternative method of disposal", according to the report, but developments of new plants "tend to be unpopular".

By summer 2006, there was a "significant risk" that there would not be enough plants operational in time to comply with the directive by 2013. Plants that produce energy from waste typically take nine years to build and begin operations.

Click here for the report.

Click here for more on the Landfill Directive.

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