Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the number of dilute and disperse landfill sites that were in use for waste disposal before the 1980s in England and Wales.

Dilute and disperse landfill sites were used up to the 1990s before containment engineering was introduced.

The Environment Agency’s (EA) historic landfill dataset is a map and dataset of landfill sites from the 1900s onwards. It uses data collected from local authorities, the former Department of the Environment and the British Geological Society.

Using this dataset, in England and Wales, up to 31 Dec 1979, the total number of landfills recorded is 13,510.

In addition, up to 1990, a search of the database identifies just over 15,000 landfill sites in England and Wales.

The quality of the records vary as they are based on information provided to the EA at the time.