Landfill and soil waste
More needs to be done in the UK to discourage soil ending up in landfill. Defra’s 2022 statistics on waste (Defra, 2022) show that 58% of landfill tonnage is soil, most of which was removed for civil engineering projects and housebuilding. The situation is deeply ironic: removing and separating the soil from its natural environment means that it is effectively ‘lost’, yet this also leaves the problem of having to dispose of the removed soil, coupled with a need for importing virgin materials to make up the shortfall. The extraction and use of these replacement materials come with their own list of negative environmental, social and economic issues. The UK urgently needs a policy and regulatory system to stop this huge amount of soil going to landfill, whilst ensuring soil can be reused to a demonstrably high standard of environmental protection. In laudably chasing waste minimisation, care is needed to avoid creating the conditions for a race-to-the-bottom with regards to operational standards.
There are potential risks associated with soil when it is displaced, whether by industrial extraction processes and landfilling, or through erosion and climate pressures. The current Waste Strategy for England (Defra and Environment Agency, 2018) ignores the loss of soil to landfills despite these two issues being connected. This needs to be addressed. Such quantities of soil ending up in landfill sites is an indication of the low interest value accorded to the soil by UK citizens, society, politicians and policy makers. The two greatest inhibitors to soil reuse (and diversion from landfill) as they make it simply impossible are
- a lack of local potential receiver sites (e.g. a site with a requirement for soil), and
- non-alignment of donor (e.g. a site with surplus soil) and receiver sites during construction phases.
Where soil has been stockpiled, in the hope of eventual reuse, they readily become a burden to the holder. This increases the likelihood of them becoming a waste, (e.g. the likelihood of discard is increased) and certainly degrades their value ( by virtue of being a waste rather than a resource) to the point where they become benchmarked against some of the lowest grade waste streams we manage as a society. For example, Letsrecycle.com shows the market prices for many recycled materials. Negative values are only really associated with, unsurprisingly, the lowest quality materials such as Mixed Recycling facility films (plastic bags and wrappings), glass and low grade wood. That soil is frequently valued as poorly as such low grade wastes demonstrates how far the construction sector needs to change its behaviour if it is to truly value soil as a natural resource.
Creating the conditions for industry to set up high-quality, fixed soil treatment facilities, which can hold these valuable materials until the receiver site (that which is accepting soil) is identified and ready, would certainly play a huge role in addressing this negative situation. Poor performing treatment facility operators must not be allowed to unlevel the playing field against operators charging for a quality service to manage a valuable resource. The concept of ‘geo-resource’ hubs has also been developed by the University of Plymouth, which captures the concept well.
Conversely there has been a tendency to overlook the benefits of bringing displaced soil back into its own environment.
References.
Responding to the UK’s Soil Crisis – Sustainable Soil Management & the Future of Soil Reuse
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