Sustainable Manufacturing Portal

Landfill

The EC Landfill Directive aims to change the way the waste is managed, drive waste minimisation and increase levels of re-use, recycling and energy recovery, by:-

setting minimum standards for the location, design, construction and operation of landfills;
setting targets for diversion of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill;
controlling the nature of waste accepted for landfill.

The Directive is tranposed into the UK law through the Landfill (England and Wales) Regulations 2002.

The directive affects all businesses that produce wastes. Key features of these directive and regulations are:-

Landfills are classified into landfill for hazardous wastes, non-hazardous wastes and inert wastes.
Landfill operators must obtain permits to operate the sites and should only accept type of waste that they are authorised to deal with.
All liquid wastes, clinical wastes, used tyres, chemical waste, hazardous waste with a total organic carbon (TOC) content of more than 6% and other wastes that are explosive, flammable, corrosive and oxidising are banned from landfills.
Waste must be treated before it can be landfilled.
Landfill tax is applied on waste that is disposed of at permitted site on the landfill operators (thus passing a portion of the costs on to the businesses and local councils indirectly).