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

56.2 Proposed Policies to Deal with Residual Waste in the
Context of the Landfill Directive
In principle, three options appear to be available regarding the Landfill Directive:
1) Re-couch the national targets as regional, or local authority ones, and implement
a mechanism to ensure these are met. This might lead Ireland to a situation akin
to the UK’s landfill allowances schemes, where Waste Disposal Authorities are
effectively allocated quotas of allowances limiting the quantity of biodegradable
municipal waste they could landfill. One major difference between the UK and
Ireland, however, is that local authorities have control over what happens with the
totality of what is defined as municipal waste in the UK. The same is not true for
Ireland, and nor would it be true if Irish local authorities were made directly
responsible for the collection and management of household waste, as proposed
in Section 3.6. The large (and, hitherto, rapidly growing) quantity of commercial
waste would still be open to the marketplace to determine the management of.
Hence, this mechanism does not seem to recommend itself, at least not for ‘all
municipal waste’, since no addressee is appropriate for the target being proposed;
2) A second option would be to choose an addressee for Landfill Directive targets
that does have control over how waste is managed. By the time waste arrives at
landfill, decisions have already been made, so this could not be the landfill
operator itself, unless the main implementing mechanism was a requirement to
pre-treat (see below). The only real alternative appears to be the collectors.
Collectors could, in principle, be given landfill allowances relating to the proportion
of (biodegradable) municipal waste they handle (another option would be to
auction the allowances), this proportion declining each year. They would be
allowed to trade these with other collectors so that those who had surplus
allowances (who had recycled more, or ensured more waste was treated) could
sell to those who were in deficit. One issue with this is that rather like the regions
/ local authorities in Ireland, collectors are not always in a position to influence
investments in treatment. The level of vertical integration across collection and
treatment / disposal varies across collection companies. The mechanism might
also compromise any efforts to develop indigenous infrastructure, with exports a
likely means used to meet targets (rather more so than already happens). Finally,
the required accounting mechanism would be difficult to design and implement in
a fair manner, and there would be significant issues of moral hazard to be
overcome; and
3) A third option is to re-cast policy such that, whatever other instruments are in
place, the market is incentivised and regulated to deliver on the targets. Here, a
wide range of options are available, and they could, in principle, be considered.
However, as highlighted above, there are some key policies already in
development regarding residual waste and the Landfill Directive. In essence, we
believe that with some adaptation, these will take Ireland a long way to meeting
its Landfill Directive targets in 2013. The 2010 issues are clearly more pressing,
as discussed above.
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International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes