London Wider Waste Strategy - London - Greater London Authority

the precise amount of landfill capacity that will be available nationally for hazardous
waste from this date is also not certain, since the permitting process for potential
landfills is not yet complete. It is quite possible that the process of permitting will not
be completed for all the available sites until shortly before the July 2004 deadline for
the end of co-disposal. It is the view of much of the waste management industry that
the use of separate cells for treated hazardous waste that is subsequently rendered nonhazardous
at non-hazardous landfills will not make up a significant amount of the
estimated shortfall in the short to medium term.
7.56. After implementation of the new regulations, there will be no hazardous waste landfills
in London. The latest permitting data indicates that the closest landfills for London’s
hazardous waste are likely to be: Pinden Quarry, Dartford (asbestos only); Warboys,
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire (approx. 76 miles from London); Kingscliffe, Northants
(approx 90 miles from London). London currently landfills in excess of 330,000 tonnes
of hazardous waste annually and a disposal route must be found for this material from
July 2004.
7.57. Research undertaken by the Hazardous Waste Forum and Environment Agency
estimates the quantity of ‘new’ hazardous wastes resulting (from expansion of the
definition of hazardous wastes under the Hazardous Waste Regulations) to be in the
order of 0.8 million tonnes nationally. London’s share of this is not known but is likely
to be in the region of 100,000 tonnes. These new hazardous wastes will comprise a
range of materials not previously defined as ‘special’ waste under the Special Waste
Regulations 1996 and will capture an additional 250 categories of materials, including
computers, fluorescent tubes, and televisions. As this will put an added disposal cost
burden on SMEs, and there are few available disposal sites, this is likely to result in
increased incidences of fly-tipping.
7.58. London has an imminent disposal capacity shortfall of around 330,000 tonnes per
annum from July 2004 and this shortfall will increase in July 2005 by an additional
c.100,000 tonnes. Taking account of the timeframe required to deliver infrastructure
capacity, London has a likely disposal capacity shortfall of some 1.3 million tonnes (over
3 years), 2.2 million tonnes (over 5 years) and 3.0 million tonnes (over 7 years).
Recommendations and Future Actions
7.59. The recommendations arising from the study are listed below. The resulting actions to
be included as part of the development of the GLA’s ‘Wider Waste’ Strategy are listed in
Table 7.1. Each action is prioritised and the relevant parties responsible for the
implementation are identified.
Recommendations: Commercial and Industrial Wastes
R.1 It is recommended that the validity of the data on C&I waste in London provided by the
Environment Agency in the ‘Strategic Waste Management Assessment, London’
(SWMAL) 2000 is improved by carrying out further targeted surveys of selected waste
streams relevant to London. Preferably this should be achieved by the GLA approaching
the Environment Agency as a matter of urgency to establish whether their current
survey can be extended to cover these terms. Government should also be lobbied to
provide more resources to the Environment Agency to fund future surveys.
R.2 It is recommended that, wherever feasible, the joint use of waste collection vehicles and
management facilities to handle both municipal waste and commercial and industrial
waste should be encouraged in order to facilitate increased levels of recycling and to
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