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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the removal of the derogations in the EU Landfill Directive will deliver the Best Overall Environmental Outcome; and how her Department made that assessment.

The Government considers that the principles outlined in the “Strategy for Hazardous Waste Management in England” (Defra 2010) provide a framework for promoting the Best Overall Environmental Outcome for hazardous waste management consistent with Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on waste. The Waste Framework Directive introduced a new five-step waste hierarchy which member states must introduce into national waste management laws, and which must be applied by member states in this priority order. Waste prevention, as the preferred option, is followed by reuse, recycling, recovery including energy recovery, and as a last option, safe disposal. In “Guidance on applying the waste hierarchy” (Defra 2011) the Government has indicated that the waste hierarchy already ranks waste management options according to what is best for the environment. Furthermore, in the Strategy for Hazardous Waste Management in England, the Government has stated:

“hazardous waste should be managed by waste producers and waste managers in accordance with the EU waste hierarchy. In applying the hierarchy, hazardous waste producers and waste managers shall opt for hazardous waste management that takes into account the resource value of hazardous wastes, and the need for health and safety to be maintained and delivers the best overall environmental outcome. This may require specific hazardous waste streams departing from the hierarchy where this is justified by life-cycle thinking on the overall impacts of the generation and management of such waste.”