The UK government has increased the landfill tax, which affects the use of sites for waste disposal, from £11 to £12 for each tonne deposited as part of a move to deter councils and industry from burying waste rather than finding ways of recycling it. In the long term this could spell the end for landfill gas energy schemes where methane generated from landfill sites is collected and burned to generate electricity.
The government is also reviewing a complex Landfill Tax Credit Scheme which allows waste disposal companies to avoid up to 20 per cent of this tax by giving money away to local environment bodies. Little of this money ends up improving recycling or developing new environmentally friendly technologies while more is used for heritage projects such as repairing church roofs.
The UK’s waste companies have been lobbying for the tax subsidy to be increased beyond 2004. Some MPs, however, want to see the landfill tax increased by £4 each year from 2004.
