65% Plus - Recycling for a sustainable Peterborough

Why we need 65% Plus recycling

Landfill – the centuries-old custom of dumping unwanted materials in holes in the ground – cannot continue for several important reasons:

• Rotting rubbish in landfill sites produces methane, a global warming gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfilled rubbish can also contaminate underground water supplies.

• Under the European Union Landfill Directive and UK legislation, volumes of landfilled biodegradable rubbish must be reduced to only 75 per cent of the 1995 total by 2010; to only 50 per cent by 2013;  and to only 35 per cent by 2020.  Local authorities that fail to meet these targets will face heavy financial penalties – equal to £150 per tonne of ‘over-target’ rubbish they dump. This means the city council can landfill only 34,135 tonnes of biodegradable rubbish in 2009/10;  22,736 tonnes in 2012/13; and 15,909 tonnes in 2019/20.

• A government-imposed landfill tax ‘escalator’ is rising in £8 annual increments from £24 per tonne in 2007/08 to £48 per tonne in 2010/11, adding to the financial burden on local councils that must also pay rising ‘gate-fee’ costs to landfill site operators for every tonne of rubbish being landfilled.

• We are rapidly running out of suitable landfill space. The Dogsthorpe landfill site used by Peterborough City Council will be full and closed by the end of 2013.