Legislation has a significant impact on the waste and resource management sector. It sets the parameters within which the experts in the sector have to work.
Independent Reviews of the waste and resource management sector can have a significant affect on how the industry develops.
Landfill tax
In the 2007 Budget the Chancellor announced that the landfill tax would increase by £8 per tonne per year for active waste until at least 2013.
The current standard rate of landfill tax is £40/tonne. This rate applies to active wastes (those that give off emissions). This will have doubled to £48/t in 2010/11. A lower rate of £2 per tonne applies to inactive wastes listed. From 1 April 2008 this will increase to £2.50 per tonne.
Overall quantities of waste recorded at landfill sites registered for the tax fell from around 96 million tonnes in 1997-98 to around 72 million tonnes in 2005-06, a reduction of around 25%.