Waste statistician Keith Kondakor has analysed the latest available data and informed us of the following:
The Landfill tax data is in for March 2009. It shows the fall in landfilling is massive. Total landfilling in the year April 2008 to March 2009 is down 19.29% to 52.453 million tonnes (from 64,989,000 the year before). Standard rate landfilling is down 14.81% and low rate is down 38.12%.
Quarterly data shows an even bigger drop of 33.14% overall with standard rate landfilling down 26.25% and low rate down -62.41%. Monthly statistics are not reliable, as landfills report once every 3 months.
1Rob Whittle NAIL2 Norfolk on May 29, 2009 at 11:10 am:
This is great work by Keith. In Norfolk we have experienced the same with a general 4% decrease in total waste over the last years; we suspect more [double digit] this year 2008-2009. Effectively this throws up every Waste Core Strategy in the UK open to scrutiny, where residual wase is a 40-50% projection of total waste on a 1.1% rise until 2038 (Defra presuming a 1.1% popn rise), each head continuing a constant 475-525Kg trend for 30 years [depends on WDA], for incinerator scale figures to stack up; which largely they don’t.
2james greyson on Jun 6, 2009 at 8:59 am:
The other two thirds could be largely eliminated as well if the economy is tweaked to cut waste instead of perpetuate it. See the Middle East presentation at the link on my name.
3John Costigane on Jun 15, 2009 at 5:48 pm:
Today’s announcement of 60%+ recycling figures for 3 District councils was very welcome news. The LetsRecycle story also mentioned a big group of others just below the 60%. The government should take encouragement from these figures and promote countrywide best practice to counter the incineration trend.
Another story there spoke of the ‘known technology’ of EfW incineration and its promotion under fresh PFI launches. The most galling aspect is the use of ‘sustainable’ and ‘green energy’ for this unwanted technology. The’ rush to burn’ is still very much alive and people should be ever-vigilant.
The recent Liberal Democrat victory in Bristol, against Labour who backed incineration, was a good result, which gives hope to those looking for further progress.