Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has publicly spoke out about the thinking behind landfill bans and reassures councils and skip hire companies alike that the definition of municipal waste changes.

We’ve all been having problems getting to grips with new changes regarding governmental reforms over waste over the past few years and it’s not about to get any easier. Local authorities and waste management companies look set to have to grapple with landfill bans being imposed for different waste streams on different dates over the years to 2020.

The Environment secretary has confirms these landfill bans will take place. Benn’s agenda is to reduce the amount of waste materials from being sent to landfill.

Ahead of a consultation on the bans – which could be issued in February 2010 – Mr Benn described them as an “encouragement” and as a form of “mutual support” for the landfill tax.

Asked whether landfill bans were Defra’s cause célèbre for waste at present and whether they were really necessary in light of the rising landfill tax, the Secretary of State said: “We are trying to make progress on a number of fronts. As I said at my ‘World Without Waste’ speech in October, why do we put all these valuable products in landfill?

“For me it is about the two things supporting each other which is why we have got to the point of landfill bans, they will mutually support each other so we can get to where we want to be. Landfill tax has had an impact, but it is about thinking ahead, being ambitious. It does not make sense to put food waste or wood or plastic or glass or aluminium cans or tin cans into landfill.”

Part of the reason behind Mr Benn’s thinking is thought to be the fact that the UK still sends 50% of household waste to landfill as well as a large percentage of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste.

By banning materials from landfill, this will encourage further recycling, said Mr Benn. “By saying you are not going to stick this into landfill any more, then we need to find another way of dealing with it which will further support the way this material is recycled and build on what we have achieved already through the efforts of local authorities, and I pay tribute to them in responding to the landfill levy.”

The Secretary of State singled out food waste as one of the key target areas for future landfill bans, arguing that it makes no sense to landfill this “for obvious reasons, both because of the methane and the fact that you have a fantastic alternative which is either composting or producing renewable energy.”

And, he suggested that all local authorities ought to be collecting food waste at least by 2020, although a precise date will be consulted on. Mr Benn remarked:  “If some local authorities can collect food waste, why can’t all local authorities collect food waste?”

And, he emphasised the logic of a landfill ban in the case of food waste which will help encourage new infrastructure such as anaerobic digestion (AD). “By definition, I take you back to landfill bans; this is a policy that has a number of benefits for clearly when we get to the point that food no longer goes into landfill clearly every local authority is going to have to find another way of dealing with it.”

Mr Benn dismissed industry claims that AD developers are finding it hard to get funding for projects and said: “We have done a huge amount on AD as this is an emerging technology with enormous potential. We have doubled the incentives under ROCs from the first of April last year, Feed-in-Tariffs will come in, there is £10m for the demonstrator projects, and the EA has said digestate will not be classified as a waste and the AD task force is working with the industry.  Frankly it is a technology which is waiting to take off because all the building blocks are in place.