Landfill Planning and Factors to Consider

When applying for a new landfill or an extension of an existing landfill in most nations there will be a planning permission to obtain before the project can go ahead. This involves submitting a planning application.



Planning applications are handled within the local authorities by officers with no particular reason to specialise in waste disposal. They make recommendations to extremely busy committees of elected members who are required to considering the whole range of planning issues in their locality, from multiplex cinemas to garage extensions and even TV aerials and dormer windows.



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There are government provides them with guidelines but planning law often favours the developer in that his application is to be granted unless there is a reason shown why it should not be so. The Councillors will often wish to show at the very least to their local constituents that they have sought to avoid the siting of a landfill near them, and to show the permission as part of a predetermined process.



For this reason local policies come much more to the fore in weeding out undesirable, or probably more correctly in most cases just simply undesired landfill developments.



A planning approval system like this is self-evidently democratic, in that elected members are making the decisions, but there are disadvantages.



Firstly, applications for waste management facilities are rarely popular and the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome means that there are often electoral advantages to elected members in opposing them. This naturally places members in an invidious position. In some counties a history of opposition to waste management facilities has resulted in the bypass of the planning system, with any application automatically being refused or not determined, thus passing the buck to a higher level of government (in the UK it is to the Secretary of State at Appeal).



Many say that landfills are not neded any more as they know that recycling rates etc are being increased, but even if you recycle 30 or 40 percent of your waste that still leaves 60 percent to dispose of in the traditional way. The public need reminding that the new era of resource management will not be an overnight change.



Market manipulation through fiscal measures like landfill tax are achieving results and making recycling more attractive in the long-term. But this can be taken to extremes, as has happened in Germany, and great care needs to be exercised in supporting markets through fiscal instruments.



Of major concern is the danger in that the government while making waste a special case to improve the process which ultimately must provide enough void capacity in landfills to avoid massive pollution from emergency tipping, they do not by so doing cause great public hostility.



The UK government is also introducing all sorts of restrictions on the movement of waste, which make markets almost exclusively national.



To charge for removing domestic waste from householders by weight of rubbish would possibly be very sensible. But, the very high sensitivity of politicians in the UK to the concept of direct and variable charging for domestic waste makes this revenue collection and recycling incentive unlikely.



That is a shame because it is the simplest and easiest driver available and one that will have enormous benefit. Every other utility service is charged directly to the ratepayer and at variable rates from electricity, water and gas. Why not waste?



Steve Evans has written for the Wastersblog since 2006. It recently received nearly 50,000 hits in a month, and continues to grow. If you have any interest in technology help in waste disposal for FREE! shouldn't you take a look?