The Wood Recycles’ Association has today (26 February) welcomed the government’s response to a consultation on policies to achieve the near elimination of biodegradable waste disposal in landfill.
In its response, the government said it will explore, among other things:
- expanding the list of separately collected wastes that are prohibited from disposal at landfill (or incineration) without some form of treatment process to include paper and card, food, garden waste, textiles and wood
- determining how we can eliminate wood wastes from being sent to landfill, including as part of a mixed waste
- extending focus to all biodegradable wastes, such as municipal and non-municipal, at the same time
Julia Turner, Executive Director of the WRA, said: “The WRA welcomes any effort to divert biodegradable waste from landfill and to protect valuable resources including waste wood.
“Fortunately, only a very tiny amount of waste wood ends up in landfill with over 97% sent to value-added end markets in 2023, showing that we are already a UK success story in this area.
“However, one barrier to ensuring the best environmental outcome for this material is storage restrictions. At present, when material is abundant – due to seasonal trends or outages – operators export valuable material which could be used in the UK due to stringent storage conditions set out in operators’ Fire Prevention Plans (FPP).
“Our industry was the first to produce sector-specific FPP guidance which has been very successful, and now we have started to engage with the regulators to see whether we can expand FPPs, given what we have learnt and the progress we have made.
“This would allow us to maximise the use of our own domestic waste wood resource, while supporting net zero and helping to keep our resources in use for longer.”