§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs pursuant to the answer of 15 July 2004,Official Report, column 1298W, on hazardous waste, how many landfill sites are able to accept hazardous waste. [185612]
§ Mr. MorleyCurrently, there are 11 merchant dedicated hazardous waste landfill sites (which would receive hazardous waste on a commercial basis accepting hazardous waste). Of these six are operating under PPC permit and five are operating under current Waste Management Licence (WML).There are eight in-house dedicated hazardous waste landfill sites (which are used to dispose of waste from their own operations such as factory process waste) accepting hazardous waste. Of these two are operating under PPC permit and six under WML. Finally, there are 13 non-hazardous sites each with a separate cell for stable non-reactive hazardous waste accepting hazardous in the separate cells. Of these two are operating under PPC permits and 11 under WML.
Some sites have been issued with PPC permits but are not yet operational usually due to sites undergoing engineering/construction (approximately nine sites). In addition, there are a number of applications pending.
§ Sue DoughtyTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many hazardous waste dumping incidents were reported to the Environment Agency in each of the last five years for which figures are available, broken down by region. [188095]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 13 September 2004]: The Environment Agency reports the data broken down by Agency Regional boundaries and is available for the calendar years 2001–04. The table shows the total numbers of incidents of deposits involving hazardous materials on land and in water, recorded in each of the years for each region. Data for 2004 are for the year to date.
Region 2001 2002 2003 2004 Anglian 90 89 117 66 EA Wales 29 54 61 45 Midlands 128 120 78 47 North East 88 106 143 112 North West 86 48 74 38 South West 44 70 36 33 Southern 75 62 65 49 Thames 58 83 90 43 Total 598 632 664 433
§ Sue DoughtyTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the postponement of the meeting of the Hazardous Waste Forum that was due to take place on 3 September. [188094]
§ Norman BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for what reasons the Hazardous Waste Forum meeting, due for 3 September, was cancelled; and on what date the meeting will now take place. [188755]
1670WS
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 13 September 2004]The chair of the forum suffered a bereavement in the week before the meeting, necessitating her absence, and there were no other senior officials available to take her place. All members were given over a week's notice of the cancellation, and in the process, the secretariat sought views of the forum on the need for a further meeting before the next planned one at the end of November.
In the light of comments from a minority of members, a further, likely smaller scale, meeting of the forum is being rescheduled for 11 October. In the meantime the Department continues to maintain regular contact with stakeholders on the forum. The secretariat for the forum has specifically requested feedback from its members on any pressing regulatory or other issues since 16 July which need to be shared with the forum, or discussed at the 11 October meeting.