The amount of waste being sent to landfill in England increased by over six per cent between 2014 and 2015, according to data published last Friday (28 October) by the Environment Agency (EA).
According to the data, 343 landfill sites in England accepted waste in 2015, managing 43.9 million tonnes, an increase of 2.6 million tonnes from 2014’s figure (41.3 million tonnes). The data covers all waste types – including hazardous, non-hazardous and inert – from all sources, including both municipal waste and commercial and industrial waste.
Although the amount to waste sent to landfill has virtually halved since 2000/2001, when almost 80 million tonnes of waste were deposited, the majority of the drop occurred between then and 2009, since when the figure has fluctuated between 45 and 40 million tonnes.
By the end of 2015, 493 sites English landfill sites were permitted, up from 480 in 2013, and, according to the EA, 343 of those accepted waste in 2015, compared to the 338 that took it in 2014.
When the amount of landfilled waste is split by regions, all but two (East Midlands, the North West and London) recorded an increase. The largest amounts of landfilled waste were deposited in the East, where the figure rose from 7.0 million tonnes to 8.9 million tonnes between 2014 and 2015, and the South East (8.4 million tonnes).
The South East was also the region with the second-most material accepted for treatment inputs (excluding metal recovery) with 9.5 million tonnes, though it was some distance behind the North West, where some 12.2 million tonnes of waste were sent of treatment.
As well as an increase in the amount of waste sent to landfill in England, the EA data also reports that incinerators managed 21 per cent more waste in 2015 than 2014, taking 10.4 million tonnes across 78 sites, compared to 2014’s 8.6 million at 74 sites.
Overall, the data suggests that 4.1 million more tonnes of waste was managed in 2015 (191.1 million) than the previous year (187.0 million), with 122 more sites (6,427) accepting it across the various treatment and disposal categories.
The full Environment Agency data on waste management in England can be found on the agency’s website.
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How will the government and DMOs address the challenges of including glass in DRS while ensuring a level playing field across the UK?
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