Waste management 2007

Summary

This information will be useful for local authorities, regional planning bodies and businesses involved in planning for future waste facilities. These pages form one of a series of annual reports summarising our waste data. You can find data for England and Wales by clicking on the links in the menu on the left. You can also access specific regional information by clicking on the Regional Data page.

Key facts

At the end of 2007 in England and Wales there were:

• 500 operational permitted landfills either meeting the requirements of the Landfill Directive, operating subject to an ongoing appeal or to an agreed landfill extension;
• 3,500 operational transfer stations;
• 950 operational treatment facilities;
• 2,200 operational metal recycling facilities;
• 83 waste incinerators accepting waste from off-site sources.

During 2007 facilities in England and Wales managed a total of 157 million tonnes of waste. Of this:

• 64 million tonnes were landfilled;
• 49 million tonnes were transferred, before final disposal or recovery;
• 28 million tonnes were treated;
• 11 million tonnes were handled through metal recycling facilities;
• five million tonnes were incinerated.

At the end of 2007 there were:

• 684 million cubic metres of available landfill capacity with 72 per cent of this available at merchant non-hazardous sites;
• 19 million cubic metres available at hazardous waste only sites;
• six and a half years of landfill life left at sites for non-hazardous wastes in England and Wales, at 2007 input rates.

During 2007 in England and Wales, 6.3 million tonnes of hazardous waste were produced, generated from over 200,000 businesses and industry, with:

• 13 per cent landfilled;
• 15 per cent transferred, before final disposal or recovery;
• 45 per cent treated;
• 19 per cent recycled, recovered or re-used;
• six per cent incinerated.

During 2007 for England and Wales:

• 129,000 tonnes of notifiable wastes were imported;
• 136,000 tonnes of notifiable wastes were exported.

Key trends

• Waste to landfill continued to decrease. It fell by seven per cent between 2006 and 2007 and has fallen 24 per cent since 2001. One of the principal reasons is the implementation of the Landfill Directive. Many older landfill sites that do not meet the stringent requirements of the Directive must close as soon as possible, and by July 2009 at the latest.
• Remaining capacity at landfill sites fell by less than two per cent during 2007.  Overall since 2001 landfill capacity has decreased by 10 per cent.
• Inputs through permitted transfer facilities increased by five percent between 2006 and 2007.
• Inputs through permitted treatment facilities have stayed about the same in 2007 overall, but there has been an increase of around 800,000 tonnes (35 per cent) in the waste through composting plants.

Hazardous waste

• Hazardous waste production has increased since 2004. Most of the increase is due to liquid inputs to one treatment facility on Teesside.
• In 2007 hazardous waste:
  - production increased by seven per cent;
  - landfilled showed no significant change (staying at around 850,000 tonnes);
  - treatment increased by nearly six per cent;
  - recycled/re-used decreased slightly (less than 1.5 per cent).

You can access more detailed information on hazardous waste movements submitted by operators by visiting our Hazardous Waste Data page.

Permitted estate

• You can access details on the numbers of permitted waste management facilities for England and Wales, split by region, from the downloadable data table on the left. Further breakdown is available for regions on the Regional Data page.
• Because many landfill sites have closed, we will only report on the number of operational sites. This means those that have an appropriate environmental permit to continue operating, those that are still open under a waste management licence because they are the subject of an ongoing appeal and any that have a nationally agreed extension to continue operating in the short term.

Notified waste shipments

We have not published data on notified waste shipments in past reports. We are providing it now to enhance information on waste destinations.

There was a five per cent increase in notifiable waste imports into England and Wales in 2007 and a 15 per cent increase in exports.

You can access more detailed information on notified waste shipments by visiting the Notified Waste Shipments page.

Improving waste information

In the near future permitted site operators will be able to report site return data via our website. This will make data reporting easier, allowing us to provide the information to users faster. We will be writing to operators about this nearer the time.

Legislative changes mean we will now be collecting data from larger industrial processes that use waste. This information will help provide a more complete picture of what happens to our waste.

An interrogatable CD is available with detailed 2007 data from our operator waste returns for England and Wales from our Publications Catalogue at a cost of £100.

Do you want to find out more?

Downloadable data tables are available on the linked pages on the left, with some accompanying graphs and charts. You can find more detailed data for each region on the Regional Data page.