In or out? Since the European Union’s inception, one of the hottest topics debated by British politicians has been whether the UK should be a member of the political union or not.

The topic reached fever pitch in 2013, the 40th-anniversary year of the UK’s membership, when Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he would hold a referendum on whether we should stay in or exit the political partnership (the referendum is set for 2017).

But what would an exit mean for the UK? Michael Warhurst, Senior Campaigner for Economics and Resource Use at Friends of the Earth, explains: “If you want to retain the access to internal markets, you’re leaving to join the EEA (European Economic Area), or you would need a specific set of treaties, like Switzerland has. In both those cases, the UK would actually adopt an awful lot of EU legislation (as laws regarding what comes onto the market would still apply). The crucial difference is that the UK will not be at the negotiating table.

“That is really important, and what is interesting is that the more Eurosceptic parts of the government are starting to realise that an EU exit could mean that the government would still have to apply European rules, but would have no influence over what they are.”

Speaking to Resource, Ray Georgeson, Chief Executive of the Resource Association (RA), reiterated Warhurst’s point that it would be a “bizarre prospect” for the UK to totally “disengage from the legislative process”, but said that, when it comes to environmental law specifically, “I suspect that we would maintain much of what is already in the acquis communautaire, and it would make little practical difference.”

Influence of the EU

But what influence has the EU had on UK waste policy? Warhurst argues that with most environmental policy having been developed whilst the UK was in the union, it’s hard to ascertain exactly what we would have achieved were it not for Europe’s legal requirements – for example, although Landfill Tax is not required under law, it was largely put in place to meet the European Union’s Landfill Directive target.

Nevertheless, he argues that the EU has “influenced the UK massively” (and in an interview in Resource 73, stated that had the UK not been bound to instate the EU’s recycling target, there would be “a good chance that there wouldn’t be any recycling target in England now”).

Indeed, according to Joseph Hennon, European Commission Spokesperson for Environment, overall, around 80 per cent of environmental legislation in member states has its origins in EU legislation. However, he tells me that ‘older’ EU states, like the UK, tend to have a higher proportion of domestic legislation.

It’s exactly the extent of the EU’s reach that government is attempting to determine in its Review of the Balance of Competences. Launched in May 2013, the review aims to ‘provide an informed and objective analysis of what EU membership means for the UK and [its] national interest’, and is thought be part of the UK government’s efforts to understand the impacts of a potential exit from the EU. Notably, the review asked what evidence there is of the EU benefitting/disadvantaging the UK’s environmental policy, and what measures, if any, would need to be introduced in the absence of EU legislation.

Members of the waste and resources industry came out in force to respond to the consultation, with five bodies – the alphabet soup of ADBA, CIWM, the ESA, the REA, and the RA – submitting a joint response outlining their ‘overall agreement’ that the UK’s EU membership has been (and would continue to be) an ‘advantage’ to the sector, claiming that EU-driven legislation had ‘sped up’ the ‘modernisation of the waste industry in the UK and improved the environmental impacts of waste’.

Speaking to Resource, CIWM Chief Executive Steve Lee said: “The EU has, to a significant degree, provided the framework for modern UK waste management policy, and four mechanisms in particular have driven progress over the last 10 years: The EU Landfill Directive, especially regarding the diversion of biodegradable municipal solid waste and landfill restrictions such as for hazardous waste; Landfill Tax; extended producer responsibility; and recycling targets, et cetera, under the revised Waste Framework Directive.”

ADBA’s Matthew Hindle added that stability brought by EU legislation is key: “European-level action increases certainty, as policies are less likely to be changed by short-term political imperatives. For companies making investment in new infrastructure such as anaerobic digestion plants, this is vital.”

England, the ‘dirty man’ of the UK

Hindle adds, however, that Britain does have some ‘record of leadership’ in environment, such as the Zero Waste Scotland Regulations. But it’s notable that where progressive action is taken, it’s usually from the devolved governments.

When I ask Lee what waste management would look like if the UK left the EU, he highlights this, saying: “The ambition being shown in Scotland and Wales – and increasingly in Northern Ireland – is not just driven by European requirements. They have seen the case for going well beyond what’s required as a minimum common level in the EU and, for the moment at least, we assume this momentum is likely to be maintained by those governments.

“The Welsh have sustainability written into their constitution and Scotland has clear policies on resource management and security. With regard to England, I suspect waste and resource efficiency ambition will remain ‘modest’ and a prisoner to the overriding imperative to cut spending… It is not fair to say that there has not been some good imaginative work – but there is a visible lack of future ambition from the English government. England is aiming to meet, but only meet, directive requirements.”

Lee points to the UK government’s response to the EU’s Consultation on the Review of the European Waste Management Targets, which outlined that it would not support the introduction of new EU waste targets (such as for preventing packaging waste), or extending current targets (to include materials like food waste), as they ‘would be unlikely to improve the current system and could result in perverse or unintended outcomes’.

England could now be said to be the ‘dirty man’ of the United Kingdom (an epithet it has previously been subjected to in Europe) in that it could rely on devolved government performances to boost the country’s overall rates. Indeed, the UK government recently announced England’s current rate of recycling increases to be ‘insufficient’ to meet the EU’s target of recycling 50 per cent of waste by 2020, while Wales has already surpassed this mark (and is aiming for 70 per cent by 2025). If Scotland becomes independent (a referendum on which will be held in September), the UK government could well miss the EU’s 2020 recycling target.

If this occurs, the UK may face hefty fines, though the EC’s Hennon tells me: “Infringement procedures could start against countries not reaching the target by 2020, but to get to the stage of fines a case would have to go to court twice. That takes several years and only happens in one per cent of infringement cases.

“Fines are based on the GDP of the country and duration and seriousness of the infringement… The UK still has time to reach the target if it takes appropriate measures.”

When contacted by Resource, Defra said it was ‘not possible for [it] to speculate about what might happen if the UK leaves the European Union’, but recent form implies that Defra would be unlikely to implement an ambitious waste policy.

Indeed, in his first official address to the industry, the new Resource Minister, Dan Rogerson, outlined that from April 2014, Defra will be ‘stepping back’ on some of its waste policy work, including waste prevention. He added that government’s role ‘should reduce as businesses increasingly realise the economic and commercial opportunities that arise from resource efficiencies and tackling environmental challenges’.

This ‘passing off’ of responsibility was reiterated in the recently-published Waste Prevention Programme for England, where Rogerson said: ‘Government’s role must be to get out of people’s hair; to set the conditions and guidelines that allow the market, businesses, local authorities and people to make the changes that will propel us towards a more circular and sustainable economy.’

Future of waste management

So, what would the future of waste management look like in a hypothetical exit? RA’s Georgeson says it may not be much different from what it is now: “It might be better not to over-dramatise the possible effects of an EU exit on waste management policy in the UK, as recently we seem to have become very good at disengaging from ambitious waste and resources policy aims stated by the European Commission without actually leaving the EU.

“You might say that a UK free of the shackles of the EU would be free to be more ambitious in its environmental policy objectives. Given that it is hard to think of any areas where the UK has taken ambitious waste policy action outside of that required by the EU, we might be waiting a long time for this to happen!”

Georgeson and Warhurst both point out that the UK has previously done some things to help reduce waste, such as voluntarily creating WRAP, although that organisation has been hit hard by government budget cuts. Georgeson notes: “Interestingly, [WRAP] finds itself turning more and more to EU funds for new project development – ironic, as the UK government turns its face away from ambitious EU policy development.”

And Lee highlights that government disengagement is not necessarily going to be detrimental to the sector: “That doesn’t mean stagnation however, as [industry, local government and the third sector] do have a vested interest, and with or without government intervention and leadership, we will see a steady shift towards better design, leaner production, and higher-quality waste management through reuse, recycling and recovery.

“Landfill will continue to reduce and energy recovery in all forms will continue to rise, at least in the short term.”

But Warhurst believes that if the UK were not bound by EU directives, it could take backwards steps: “The UK line (by that I mean the English government) always used to be that landfill is fine, we have lots of space, there’s not much leachate, and we can get a lot of methane out, etc. Incineration is expensive, and I have a feeling that if you remove all EU drivers, such as the waste hierarchy, the natural thing for the UK to do in terms of waste management would be landfill (which it is advised not to do under the hierarchy), because it’s fast. You get these stories about how little space is left, but there are usually a lot of flaws in the analysis, and there are still a lot of holes in the ground.

“At the other end, there is a more substantial industry lobby for recycling – and the UK is immensely dependent on imported resources so it’s stupid to throw them away – but I wonder if, in the event of a complete break away from the EU, it would be enough for the Treasury to overcome its inherent stance of doing as little as possible.”

He adds that without the EU’s “stability and incremental improvement” in waste policy, we’d be “stuck with the random nature of a lot of UK policy making”.

When I ask the EC’s Hennon what a UK exit could do to the country’s waste management policy, he is tentative in his reply: “You would like to think that it would have little effect and that any developed country would be able to see the value of having strong legislation on waste management. The benefits in terms of jobs, better use of resources, less pollution and less litter are obvious.”

But what seems obvious to some isn’t obvious to all. Georgeson notes that industry needs to demonstrate the positive benefits of EU membership to the public, citing an Observer opinion poll that showed 34 per cent of people thought EU environmental policy had been positive for the UK, while 30 per cent thought it had been negative.

He says: “Despite our industry’s good stories about the value of our industry in terms of green jobs, carbon reduction and economic growth, this message is clearly not getting through, and there is much more that must be done by industry leaders to address this collectively.”