International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

as was made clear above, the inclusion of commercial waste in the definition of
municipal waste makes Landfill Directive targets more difficult to meet.
51.4.2.2 National Biodegradable Waste Strategy
The National Biodegradable Waste Strategy (NBS) sets out a range of ‘targets’. We
use the term in parentheses since it is not always clear whether these really are
targets or not, or at least, who the targets are to fall upon. They have the character
more of calculations and projections as to ‘what might be required’ to meet the
Landfill Directive under a particular set of assumptions. Targets are set for particular
actors to achieve, but it is not always clear who has responsibility for meeting a given
target from the document, still less, what might be the implications of failure to
deliver these.
Amongst these assumptions are that municipal waste generation will first of all stop
growing, and then reverse, as a so-called waste reduction factor of 3% is applied from
2005, rising to 6% by 2016. The projection is shown in Figure 51-6 below. This
projection is important for the analysis since it establishes the magnitude of the
expected performance gap.
Figure 51-6: Projections for BMW Generation and Quantity Landfilled
Source: DoEHLG (2006) National Biodegradable Waste Strategy, April 2006.
Second, the assumption implicit in the calculation of recycling rates is that the
proportion of commercial and household waste in municipal waste remains constant
for the period to 2016. It clearly has not been constant thus far, and no justification is
offered for the assumption.
The report sets targets for managing biodegradable waste in ways other than landfill
as follows:
709
• 2010 required 1,412,083
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes