§ Ms AthertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what guidelines exist to determine permitted distance between landfill sites and occupied private housing. [23691]
§ Mr. MeacherThe Town and Country Planning (General Development Procedure) Order 1995 requires a local planning authority to consult the Environment Agency before granting planning permission for development within 250 metres of land which is or has, at any time in the 30 years before the relevant planning application, been used for the deposit of refuse or waste. Guidance to the agency in Waste Management Paper 27 on Landfill Gas, published in 1991, contains guidelines on the proximity of new housing developments to landfill sites. These guidelines do not arise from European legislation and we have had no discussions with the European Commission about changes to the guidance.
In addition, under section 42 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Environment Agency must take the steps needed to ensure that the activities authorised by a waste management licence do not cause environmental pollution, harm to human health or serious detriment to local amenities; and the conditions of a licence are complied with.
Following implementation of the Landfill Directive, the Environment Agency will be required to exercise its functions under the directive in order to prevent, or reduce as far as possible, negative effects from the landfilling of waste on the environment and any resulting risk to human health during the whole life cycle of the site. The directive also requires local planning authorities to take into consideration the distance from the site boundary when considering the location of a new landfill site. This requirement has applied to all new landfill sites from 16 July 2001 but is not applied retrospectively to existing landfill sites.
The Environment Agency can suspend, vary or revoke a waste management licence or, in future, the permit issued under the terms of the Landfill Directive, where it 277W appears the continuation of activities would cause pollution of the environment or harm to human health or where the conditions of the permit or licence are breached.
§ Ms AthertonTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what her latest assessment is of progress towards targets for the reduction of waste in landfill sites. [23690]
§ Mr. MeacherWe have set a target to cut the amount of industrial and commercial waste going to landfill in England to 85 per cent. of that landfilled in 1998 by 2005. The statutory targets for reducing waste landfilled are set in the EU landfill directive. These are that by 2010 biodegradable municipal waste landfilled must be reduced to 75 per cent. of that produced in 1995, by 2013 to 50 per cent., and by 2020 to 35 per cent. The table provides estimates of the amounts of municipal waste landfilled in England and Wales based on the DEFRA annual survey of Municipal Waste Management.
England and Wales Percentage (mtonnes) MW MW landfilled BMW landfilled/1995 BMW 1995–96 25.2 — — 1996–97 26.0 85 87 1997–98 27.2 85 91 1998–99 27.9 82 91 1999–2000 29.3 81 94 Note:
Assumes proportion of MW which is biodegradable remains at 62.5 per cent.
In 1999–2000, the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill was 94 per cent. of that produced in 1995–96. Although the percentage of municipal waste going to landfill is reducing, the tonnage is still rising because the amount of waste being produced continues to rise. Statutory targets to triple local authority recycling and composting of household waste by 2005–06 in England will help reduce landfilling, and tradable landfill permits issued to waste disposal authorities will require them to meet the directive's targets. We will bring forward primary legislation for the permits scheme as soon as parliamentary time allows.