Waste not, recycle more

The UK will fail to meet its EU commitments to waste management targets unless the government accelerates its review of waste strategy, the Engineering Employers Federation has warned.

While the Chancellor of the Exchequer is rumoured to be considering an increase in landfill tax to boost recycling, the EEF urges that any money raised by such an increase should be reinvested in new waste management technologies and infrastructure.

The government is thinking short-term, which will not help it tackles the issues, says EEF director of operational policy, Mike McKiernan. 'While industry fully accepts the use of targets as an important part of enforcing legislation and encouraging environmental benefits, they will fail without the necessary infrastructure, economic incentives and government leadership,' he says. 'Raising taxes, including the landfill tax, would mean little without these and other issues being factored into government thinking.'

In a submission to the House of Commons Audit Committee on Waste Management, the EEF says that the UK needs a collection system to handle re-use and recycling of waste materials. It also needs to adjust its attitudes to waste. There is an increasing trend to define industrial by-products as waste, it says, which puts up administrative and legal barriers to their use.

Moreover, it says, the government and EU 'need to be realistic about what level and type of recycling is achievable', which would make sure that targets, when set, are achievable. This would avoid the current problem of companies being told that their wastes cannot be recycled because 'there is no market for that material at present'.