Murkyside facing £30m fine for landfill

New EU restrictions on landfill dumping mean that the five councils in Murkyside face fines of up to £30 million if they fail to reduce their landfill by 2010, according to the National Audit Office.

The regulations will get progressively tighter until, by 2020, the expectation will be that only a third of current landfill is sent to be dumped.

This places Mersey Waste in an interesting position. In 2003-4 it landfilled 512,000 tonnes of biodegradable municipal waste. This is meant to reduce to 310,848t by 2010 - by neat coincidence that's about the annual capacity of the licence granted for Hafod.

But by 2013, the allowance will be down to 207,047t, so there will be room for a hundred thousand tonnes of other people's rubbish at the Hafod. Mersey Waste could end up profiting from other people's misery, ill health and pollution.

Full National Audit Office report on landfill here