§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the conclusions of the recent report by the Hazardous Waste Forum in respect of her Department's hazardous waste management strategy. [154188]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 10 February 2004]: The Hazardous Waste Forum published its Action Plan in December. The Forum's recommendations centre around four main themes:
- (i) There should be clarity and firm and fair enforcement of regulatory and legislative requirements, particularly with respect to the Landfill Directive.
- (ii) There should be greater awareness raising amongst business and industry to promote waste minimisation and environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes.
- (iii) There needs to be clear information on the likely capacity requirements for treatment and disposal of hazardous waste, and that a task force should be set up to review progress on the provision of this capacity.
- (iv) That for the longer term, work should he put in hand to build on Waste Strategy 2000 to develop policy instruments to encourage waste minimisation and environmentally sound management, to develop better data on hazardous waste arisings and develop targets for hazardous waste reduction, and to address issues concerned with household hazardous waste.
Actions are and have been taken with respect to these recommendations. In particular the Government will shortly be announcing the outcome of the consultation on the implementation of the EU Council Decision on Waste Acceptance Criteria under the Landfill Directive. In addition, a treatment and capacity task force has been set up under the chairmanship of the waste industry to get better information on industry plans for 141W treatment and disposal facilities. The consideration and development of further policy instruments is likely to form part of the Forum's work for this year.
§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment her Department has made of the possible impact of implementing EU Directives relating to hazardous waste on the number of available dumping sites after July. [154190]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 10 February 2004]: I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) on 14 January, Official Report, column 737W.
The treatment and disposal capacity task force of the Hazardous Waste Forum are currently assessing and updating the information in this table as industry plans develop.