Taxes on waste-to-energy incineration would be more effective in diverting resources towards the top of the waste hierarchy than landfill bans, according to Zero Waste Europe (ZWE).

The organisation, which seeks to reduce waste generation in Europe, published a policy paper yesterday (10 November) that considers the potential impact of imposing landfill bans to bring about a circular economy.

The paper is a response to stakeholders who have suggested during the process of creating the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package that a ban of landfilling would be a suitable measure for encouraging reduction, reuse and recycling.

According to ZWE, banning landfill would create problems that would ‘go the opposite direction to the desired goal’.

Landfill bans increasing incineration

The main problem that ZWE suggests would be caused by phasing out landfill is the driving of incineration, with a subsequent ‘lock-in’ effect creating dependence on it.

‘Unless the system is carefully designed, the only way to comply with a landfill ban is by increasing incineration’, says the paper. Where landfill bans have been enacted, it continues, national and local decision-makers have been forced to plan incinerators and then use them at the planned tonnage to ensure their pay-back. This, it concludes, ‘hinders the possibility in local systems to continuously improve reduction, reuse and material recovery’.

Data sources from Eurostat shows that in all seven European countries that have implemented national landfill bans, the increase in waste going to incinerators has outweighed the increase in recycling since the ban’s introduction.

In Germany and the Netherlands, increases in incineration have been more than two and three times the increase in recycling respectively, while in Austria and Norway the amount of recycling has actually decreased. Even in Denmark, where the recycling increase is just a fraction behind the increase in incineration, negative effects have been created, with a 37.5 per cent increase in waste generation.

By banning landfilling and thus promoting the alternative of incineration, with the capacity issues that follow, the circular principles of reducing residual waste are negated, the paper concludes, as more is needed to run incineration facilities efficiently.

Definition and reduction problems

Some countries, such as Germany and Sweden, claim to have ‘zero waste to landfill policies’, but the paper calls these misleading, arguing that they are in fact ‘zero direct landfilling of untreated residual waste’ policies. By sending their waste to incineration and mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities, they can send ash, no longer classed as municipal solid waste, to landfills – what ZWE calls an ‘accounting trick’ that ‘does little to help understand EU statistics’ and ‘poses a serious threat’ to the circular economy. Typically, 20 to 30 per cent of the weight of waste processed through incineration remains as bottom ash. This can sometimes be reused in aggregates and building materials, but is often disposed of to landfill.

The final issue highlighted in the paper is that a linear economy can exist alongside a landfill ban. A ban, it says, is ‘blind’ to waste generation and reuse and recycling.

The paper reads: ‘Unless all the treatment options which “break the loop” are considered, the consequence of banning or phasing out one of them will result in a transfer of waste to another. This will create unnecessary tensions which in no way help to move towards a circular economy.’

Tax on waste-to-energy incineration suggested

A zero waste to incineration policy, the paper concludes, would be better for bringing about zero waste to landfill than a landfill ban itself, provided it is backed up by circular policies and measures.

ZWE recommends that a compulsory tax on landfill and waste-to-energy incineration be imposed, alongside a lower tax on the landfilling of stabilised waste. This, the organisation says, would be more effective in diverting waste towards prevention, preparation for reuse and recycling than a complete ban on landfill.

The paper also suggests that methods of disposal should not be the primary focus when considering how to eliminate waste, contending that constant product and process redesign, flexible waste treatment facilities and the optimisation of collection schemes are all better approaches for closing the European loop.

ZWE’s full policy paper is available on its website.