Hazardous Waste (National Policy Statement)

Thursday 14th July 2011 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mrs Caroline Spelman)]

The Planning Act 2008 provides for national policy statements (NPSs) that set out Government policy for particular types of development. It requires the draft NPSs to be publicised, consulted on, and laid in Parliament with the intention of enabling public and parliamentary debate to take place.

Public consultation on the hazardous waste NPS for England started today, 14 July, lasting for 14 weeks. At the same time I have laid it before Parliament for a period of scrutiny (the “relevant period”) ending 20 January 2012.

The hazardous waste NPS sets out our need for hazardous waste infrastructure to enable hazardous waste to be managed in a way that safeguards human health and protects the environment. Although we are taking steps to minimise the production of all waste, there will remain for the foreseeable future processes that will produce hazardous waste and products that contain hazardous substances and which will need to be managed as hazardous waste when discarded. Hazardous waste arisings remain significant with around 4.8 million tonnes arising in 2008 and are expected to rise further in future years as improvements in waste management such as producer responsibility schemes and European changes to the definition of hazardous waste take effect and require the management of more waste streams separately as hazardous waste. It is important that we have sufficient infrastructure both to manage this waste in an environmentally sound manner and to move the management of hazardous waste up the waste hierarchy so that we maximise the amounts recycled and recovered and minimise amounts sent for disposal.

We look to the market to provide the facilities. The national policy statement for hazardous waste does not make proposals, therefore, for any specific developments. However, it sets out the types of nationally significant infrastructure required and sets a policy framework to guide the determination of applications for development consent.

The hazardous waste NPS is available on the DEFRA website at www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/07/14/hazardous-waste/.