Waste management 2006

Summary

This report is designed to make the data we routinely collect from permitted waste management facilities accessible to local authorities, regional planning bodies, government and others involved in waste planning and the provision of waste management facilities. It is one of a series of annual reports intended to provide a basis for planning and monitoring.

Key trends

• Reliance on landfill continues to decrease; landfill deposits have fallen slowly but steadily and are down 18% since 2001 - equivalent to 15.5 million tonnes.
• Inputs to licensed treatment facilities have increased significantly since 2000/1 and the 2006 returns show significant increases in inputs to materials recovery facilities (MRFs) and composting plants since 2005.
• If waste transfer is discounted (almost all 'transferred' waste will have gone on to treatment or disposal) the total amount of waste handled at permitted sites fell in both 2005 and 2006

Hazardous waste 2006

• A detailed Hazardous Waste Update for 2006 has already been published on this site. New and more detailed reporting categories for site input returns makes it possible to compare input returns with those from our hazardous waste database more accurately. The landfill deposit data from the two systems for 2006 corresponds very closely.
• Hazardous waste has increased since 2004 (the last year when we had comparable data). Most of the increase is due to liquid inputs to one treatment plant on Teesside. Small increases in volumes of WEEE (mostly fridges) and clinical waste were offset by falls in waste produced in other sectors, particularly hazardous construction and demolition materials.

Better strategic waste management data

• Improvements to our site input returns and other data collection and recording systems mean that we can provide more detail than has been possible in previous years. For example we have better information on incineration, and can report on waste inputs as well as capacity (see incineration page).
• More comprehensive site return information allows us to report when the data is available on the origin (i.e. where waste is produced) of waste that came to sites, and on what happened to the waste that leaves treatment and transfer facilities.
• We also collected a wide range of additional information in 2006, including data from surveys on waste treatment capacity and inputs to exempt facilities, and we updated estimates for 2006 of agricultural and commercial/industrial wastes.
• This information is being analysed at the moment and we plan to release it in April as the third phase of our 2006 waste data update. It will be accompanied by a CD-Rom database tool giving access to much more detailed site input return data.

Permitted estate

Details on the number of waste management facilities for England and Wales split down by region can be accessed from the downloadable data table. Further breakdown of this information can be found on the individual regional pages.

Find out more

Downloadable data tables are available and some explanation and analysis is provided by the accompanying graphs and charts. There are also separate pages with more detailed data and tables for each region. You can access them by clicking the Regional Information page link on the left.