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

A general ban on recyclable and combustible waste was introduced in 1996. 933 The
ban covers around 35 material streams and includes organic and household waste,
paper & card, tyres, ELVs, batteries and various hazardous wastes. The purpose was
to reduce the amount of waste being landfilled.
The ban was introduced in the context of the dioxin emissions scandal in the late
1980s. The Dutch were rebuilding their incineration capacity with much higher
pollution control mechanisms, and regulatory measures were needed to ensure that
incineration capacity would be used, and hence, that the high investment cost would
not be wasted.
The amount of waste generated in the Netherlands has been reported as ‘decoupled’
from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 2000. 934 The amount of waste landfilled
halved from 1995-2003. For incineration, the opposite trend was observed. The total
amount of waste incinerated in 1995 was 4.8 Mt and in 2003 it had increased to 8.2
Mt. As the incineration capacity remained constant over this period, as reported in the
IVM study below, the remaining waste was exported for incineration:
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‘In 1995 and 1996 the last incineration plants were built, and from that time
the government maintained a moratorium for ‘traditional’ grate incineration
plants. New plants using more energy efficient technologies (such as coincineration
or gasification) were allowed, but no new incineration plants
became operational until 2003. So, the total number of waste incineration
plants was constant at 11 in the period 1997-2003’.
In certain areas incineration capacity was limited so a number of waste producers
were unable to dispose of their combustible wastes thus exemptions were made so
that operators could continue to landfill waste so that it was not illegally dumped. As
the incineration capacity increased (to around 5.4 Mt), and the export of waste was
unconstrained due to the harmonisation of waste trading via the European Waste
Shipment Regulation (WSR, 259/93), exemptions became harder to obtain.
The main purpose of these policies was to shift waste from landfill and to ensure
continued supply for the national incineration plants so that the capital expenditure
outlaid in upgrading them was not wasted. This is why waste has been categorised
into combustible and non-combustible fractions for the purpose of the ban and the
landfill levy. This classification is meaningless in countries that are not advocating
widespread EfW use, and may be counterproductive from an environmental
perspective.
Other points to note about The Netherlands are; that there is a general good
awareness of the environment and waste related issues will be of social importance;
but also that the swift implementation of the tax and ban led to under-capacity of
933 Eunomia et al (2007) Household Waste Prevention Policy Side Research Programme, Final Report
for Defra.
934 H. Bartelings, P. van Beukering, O. Kuik, V. Linderhof, F. Oosterhuis, L. Brander and A. Wagtendonk
(2005) Effectiveness of Landfill Taxation, R-05/05, Report Commissioned by Ministerie von VROM,
November 24, 2005.