Waste Management Benchmarking Analysis and Policy Priorities

Waste Management
Benchmarking Analysis
and Policy Priorities


May 2008

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 2
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1. Introduction and Background.............................................................................. 6
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2. Overview of Waste Management in Ireland............................................................. 6
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3. Ireland’s Comparative Performance ..................................................................... 8
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4. Conclusions and Recommendations .................................................................... 18
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APPENDIX 1: Summary of Main Policy Actions Identified in the 2007 Waste Management
Benchmarking Report............................................................................................ 26
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APPENDIX 2: Possible Municipal Waste Treatment Modelled Scenarios for 2016 ................... 27
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APPENDIX 3: Examples of Environmental Supports offered by Enterprise Ireland.................. 29
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Executive Summary
The availability of waste management services and facilities and the associated costs continue to be
a key competitiveness issue for enterprise in Ireland. This report presents the findings of an updated
waste management benchmarking assessment and sets out the policy actions that need to be
prioritised to ensure that Ireland meets the waste management needs of enterprise now and in the
future.


Key Findings
It is ten years since the publication of the Government policy statement on waste management,
Changing our Ways, which has resulted in a significant improvement in Ireland’s waste management
performance. Most notable is the substantial progress towards improving our recycling performance.
Municipal recycling rates have increased from nine percent of total municipal waste treated in 1998
to 36 percent in 2006 (most recent data available). Ireland’s recycling performance has also been
impressive with regard to packaging waste and electrical and electronic goods. The EU set a target
for packaging waste recycling of 50 percent by 2005, which Ireland exceeded in 2004 with a
packaging recovery rate of 56.4 percent. Under the WEEE directive, Member States were obliged to
achieve a collection rate of 4kg of household WEEE per capita by the end of 2006: Ireland achieved
7.4 kg per inhabitant1.
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However, Ireland continues to perform poorly relative to competitor countries in meeting the waste
management needs of enterprise:

landfill costs in Ireland have moderated in the last two years but remain among the top three
most expensive of the benchmarked countries;

biological waste treatment fees in Ireland are the most expensive of the benchmarked
countries;

Ireland has limited waste management infrastructure options with resultant heavy reliance on
landfill;

there remains a high level of uncertainty as to the policy framework for waste management in
Ireland; and

by 2016, Ireland will need an annual capacity of approximately 800,000 tonnes of thermal
treatment, 500,000 tonnes of mechanical biological treatment and 700,000 tonnes of landfill to
treat municipal (household and commercial) waste. A further 500,000 tonnes capacity of
landfill, thermal treatment and biological will be required for non-hazardous industrial waste as
well as 100,000 tonnes of solvent treatment capacity for hazardous waste including thermal
treatment and solvent recycling facilities.

Ireland’s comparatively poor performance on key benchmarking indicators such as costs and waste
treatment capacity can be traced back to the failure to deliver key waste management


1 WEEE = Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.
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infrastructure in recent years. In spite of the urgent need for action to accelerate the delivery of
waste infrastructure from reuse and recycling to incineration, progress in addressing the barriers to
infrastructure rollout in the past twelve months has been slow.

Conclusions and Recommendations
Forfás is seriously concerned about the implications for enterprise development of the lack of
progress in addressing waste policy issues in recent years and the high level of uncertainty that
persists about the future direction of waste policy, which in turn is likely to lead to further delays in
progressing these actions.

After 15 years of exceptional economic performance, Ireland is heading into a period of slower
growth due mainly to the downturn in construction activity. Recent developments such as the
slowdown in the US economy and the increasing strength of the euro against the dollar and sterling
are adding to the challenges facing the economy, and in particular Irish exporters. It is therefore
vital that policy decisions in areas such as waste management support national competitiveness as
well as environmental sustainability policy objectives.

The main policy actions required to deliver a choice of competitively priced, environmentally
friendly and secure waste management options to enterprise and to move Ireland up the waste
hierarchy are set out below.

1. Ireland needs to accelerate the delivery of waste infrastructure projects along the waste
hierarchy. Specific infrastructures that need to be developed include:

thermal treatment capacity to recover energy from municipal and industrial waste;

thermal treatment or landfill capacity for hazardous waste;

biological treatment (composting, anaerobic digestion) throughout Ireland; and

reprocessing capacity for recovered materials (e.g. paper, glass and plastic recycled
materials).

2. The regionally based waste planning framework is hindering the delivery of cost effective,
commercially viable, sophisticated waste treatment options along the waste hierarchy as it
tends to result in smaller scale facilities than would be the case if infrastructure planning was
done at a national level. The regional waste management plans need to be coordinated at
national level to attract investment in waste infrastructure in a way that maximises potential
economies of scale, competition and enables the market to pass on the benefits to businesses
and households.

3. There is currently a high level of uncertainty about the future direction of Irish waste
management policy due to the delay in reaching a decision on the regulation of the sector (the
public consultation on the matter was concluded in late 2006), as well as the proposed changes
in waste policy in the areas of preferred treatment options and the use of levies indicated by
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the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It is critical that
Government provides policy and regulatory certainty in the waste sector to incentivise private
investment in waste infrastructure. In particular, the following actions need to be prioritised:

a decision on the future regulatory structure for the waste sector needs to be made
quickly, as the current regulatory uncertainty is inhibiting investment in alternatives to
landfill. In determining how the sector should be regulated, the relative roles and
responsibilities of the State in the regulation and management of the waste sector at
national, regional, and local level need to be clarified to ensure that Ireland remains
attractive to private investment in waste infrastructure; and

the review of waste policy recently initiated by the Department of the Environment,
Heritage and Local Government needs to be completed as speedily as possible and its
outputs progressed quickly. The scope of the waste review needs to include an
assessment of what Ireland needs to do to ensure that the waste management needs of
enterprise are addressed in the context of wider waste policy objectives.

4. The introduction of the Strategic Infrastructure Act, 2006 is welcome and its effectiveness in
terms of reducing the lead time to get waste projects approved needs to be assessed in due
course. The provision of resources to fast track judicial reviews of strategic infrastructure
projects needs to be prioritised.

5. Waste policy needs to send the appropriate price signals to the private sector to support
national competitiveness objectives in the short and medium term, while also ensuring that
Ireland meets its environmental obligations. In particular, Ireland needs to:

ensure that further increases in the landfill levy are not introduced until such time as
adequate new alternative waste treatment facilities are operational; and

assess what measures are required to ensure that alternative waste treatment options in
Ireland are competitively priced and not determined by landfill costs which are among
the top three most expensive of the benchmarked countries.

6. Continued and enhanced efforts are required by Government Departments and agencies to
ensure that businesses are fully aware of how best to exploit waste management reduction
processes and technologies. Given that many organisations are already working with companies
on a range of energy efficiency, pollution prevention or resource conservation initiatives, the
opportunity to develop a more integrated approach across a range of related issues should be
exploited to create greater awareness among companies, particularly SMEs, of the benefits of
waste reduction and prevention.

Prioritising these actions is critical for the delivery of competitively priced and environmentally
sound alternative infrastructure along the hierarchy. In order to ensure that the required
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infrastructure projects are delivered as quickly as possible, the actions to coordinate the regional
plans, create policy and regulatory certainty, reduce planning lead times and set the price signals
for waste infrastructure investors need to be progressed in parallel. Progress on waste minimisation
and prevention initiatives is the most effective tool available to address both competitiveness and
environmental sustainability objectives. The provision of the necessary resources to help businesses
to realise waste prevention objectives needs to be prioritised.
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1.
Introduction and Background
The quality, availability and cost of waste management solutions continue to be a key
competitiveness issue for enterprise in Ireland. Enterprises continue to have concerns in relation to
cost of waste management services and the lack of adequate waste infrastructure and services in
Ireland to meet the demands from industrial, commercial and household waste generation.

There is currently a high level of uncertainty about the future direction of Irish waste policy. In
particular, a decision on the regulation of the sector is pending2. This uncertainty, which has
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serious implications for the provision of new services and infrastructure by the private sector, is
likely to continue for some time as the recently initiated review of waste policy by the Department
of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is not due to be completed until mid 2009.

This report presents the findings of the latest waste management benchmarking update and reviews
Ireland’s progress since the first waste management benchmarking report in 2006. Building on
previous waste reports, it sets out the policy priorities from an enterprise development perspective
that need to be addressed to ensure that Ireland meets the waste management needs of industry
now and in the future.

In 2005, Forfás commissioned RPS Consulting Engineers to undertake a series of three benchmarking
studies of the Irish waste management sector. This report incorporates the findings of the latest
benchmarking analysis. Forfás established a Steering Group to oversee the project, comprising
representatives from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of
Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Enterprise Ireland, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and IDA Ireland.

Given that internationally, waste data can often be of variable quality and that there is a lack of up
to date, comparable international data, one of the major challenges of the benchmarking exercise
was to develop robust indicators. As a consequence, this study focuses on the priority waste streams
of most relevance from an enterprise development perspective, namely municipal, industrial and
hazardous waste3.
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2.
Overview of Waste Management in Ireland
Ireland produced over 30 million tonnes of waste (excluding agricultural waste) in 2006; an increase
of 23 percent since 20044. Construction and demolition waste increased by 50.6 percent between
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2 The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government published the consultation paper, Regulation of the Waste
Management Sector, in August 2006.
3 Reported data for municipal and hazardous waste is generally reliable and was found to be consistent for most of the selected countries.
Reporting on industrial waste was limited because of data availability and comparability issues.
4 National Waste Report 2006, EPA, January 2008.
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2004 and 2006, and accounted for almost 55 percent of total waste in 2006, up from 45 percent in
2004. Mining and quarrying waste is the second largest waste stream at 15.6 percent (Figure 1).

Of the waste streams of most relevance from an enterprise development perspective,
manufacturing waste accounted for 12.4 percent of the total in 2006 (compared to 20.1 percent in
2004), and municipal waste’s share was 10.7 percent (12.0 percent in 2004)5. Other waste streams
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include end of life vehicles and scrap metal (2.4 percent) and contaminated soil (1.3 percent).

Figure 1: Composition of Waste Generation in Ireland, 2004-2006 (sectoral growth rates in brackets)
100%
7.6%
6.4%
Other
(+ 6.3%)
90%
16.1%
15.6%
80%
Industrial: Mining &
Quarrying
12.4%
70%
(+18.2%)
20.1%
4.3%
Industrial: Manuf acturing
60%
6.4%
( -24.3%)
4.8%
50%
6.9%
Municipal: Commercial
(+ 10.3%)
40%
30%
Municipal: Household
54.8%
(+ 14.5%)
44.5%
20%
Construction & Demolition
10%
(+ 50.6%)
0%
2004
2006

Source: EPA
Notes:
1
The figures in brackets in the legend box indicate the percentage change in the amount of waste generated in
each waste stream between 2004 and 2006.
2
The EPA cautions that the Construction and Demolition waste data is poor.
3
Manufacturing waste excludes hazardous waste.
4
Figures for 2004 are revised by the EPA in the 2006 report.
5
The “Other” waste category includes hazardous waste, end of life vehicles and scrap metal and contaminated soil.
It also includes street cleansing waste which is normally classified as a municipal waste stream.

Ireland’s approach to dealing with waste is based on the internationally adopted waste management
hierarchy, which states that the most preferred option for waste management is prevention and


5 Municipal waste includes commercial and household waste. Hazardous waste accounted for one percent of total waste in 2006 (compared to
0.4 percent in 2004).
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minimisation of waste, followed by re-use and recycling, energy recovery and, least favoured of all,
disposal (Figure 2).

‘Prevention and minimisation’ aims to reduce waste at source, thus eliminating the need to handle,
transport, treat and dispose of waste. ‘Re-use and recycling’ methods, also known as recovery,
include the re-use of plastic bags, the re-processing of materials like glass into new products and
biological treatment6, 7. ‘Energy recovery’ or waste-to-energy (WTE) refers to any waste treatment
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process that creates energy in the form of electricity or heat from a waste source that would have
otherwise been disposed of in landfill. The most commonly used method of WTE is thermal
treatment. The least favoured treatment option is the disposal of untreated waste in landfill
facilities.

Figure 2: Waste Management Hierarchy

Source: Changing Our Ways, Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, 1998

3.
Ireland’s Comparative Performance
A competitive enterprise sector needs a choice of competitively priced, environmentally friendly
and secure waste management options along the waste hierarchy, from prevention and minimisation
through to reuse, recycling, recovery and disposal. Ireland is currently falling short in a number of
areas with relatively higher costs and a heavy reliance on landfill.


6 Re-use is also considered to be waste prevention, especially where the item is used for the same original purpose. Recycling involves a
complete re-transformation of a recovered material usually in an industrial scale process.
7 Biological treatment in this report refers primarily to composting, which can be defined as the process of producing compost through
decomposition of biodegradable organics matter. Other forms of biological treatment include anaerobic digestion, where unlike composting,
sewage and animal waste can be broken down to produce soil improver, and in some cases a biogas that can be used to produce electricity.
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The following benchmarking indicators provide an overview of the performance of Ireland’s waste
management sector. Waste generation data (Figures 3-5) which serves as an indicator of the ability
of businesses and households to prevent and minimise waste; the waste treatment options available
to enterprise (Figures 6 and 7); and the level of landfill, thermal and biological gate fees (Figures 8-
10) and municipal waste collection ownership (Figure 11) together give an indication of the
competitive structure of the Irish waste market compared with other countries.


3.1.
Benchmarking Methodology
This is the third in a series of waste management benchmarking reports produced by Forfás. The
baseline report was published in 2006 and the first update in 2007. It was not possible within the
scope of the study to look at all seven priority waste streams. The study therefore focused on the
priority waste streams of most relevance from an enterprise perspective - municipal, industrial and
hazardous waste.

RPS, in consultation with Forfás and the Steering Group, drew up a list of countries to benchmark
Ireland against: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore
and Sweden. Two regions were also included, namely Flanders and Massachusetts. These countries
and regions were selected in order to assess a variety of market sizes with different waste
management policies and practices as well as markets with similar waste generation patterns.

Reported data for municipal and hazardous waste is generally reliable and was found to be
consistent for most of the selected countries. Reporting on industrial waste was limited because of
data availability and comparability issues. As waste data tends to be updated on a cyclical basis, it
is not possible to update all of the indicators for each benchmark country every year. In all cases,
any specific caveats or qualifications relating to the data used are highlighted in the analysis of the
key performance indictors in this section.


3.2.
Waste Generation
Municipal waste, which comprises commercial and household waste, increased by 12.8 percent to
3.4 million tonnes between 2004 and 20068. Commercial waste grew by 10.3 percent over that
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period while household waste increased by 14.5 percent.

In terms of municipal waste generation per capita, Ireland remains the fourth highest of the
benchmark countries. Per capita municipal waste generation in Ireland has risen from 777kg in 2004


8 While annual growth in municipal waste generation slowed to 2.8 percent and 1.3 percent respectively in 2004 and 2005, it increased by 11.3
percent in 2006.
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