Articles
What is Landfill Tax?
29-09-2008 21:00:46
What is Landfill Tax?
Landfill Tax is an environmental tax paid on top of normal landfill rates by any company, local authority or other organisation that wishes to dispose of waste in landfill. It is intended to encourage alternative means of waste disposal, such as recycling, by reflecting the environmental costs of landfill use more accurately in its price.
Landfills are solid waste disposal sites, where both active and inert waste is deposited and compacted, and then periodically covered over with a layer of soil. Their purpose is to minimise the volume of non-recyclable solid waste material and store it with minimal danger to the public. Landfill sites must be licensed by the Government.
It is landfill operators who are liable for the tax - the costs are passed on to users as higher prices. Landfill Tax is collected from operators by HM Customs and Excise.
Landfill Tax operates at two rates: a standard rate of £32 per tonne for active waste (substances that either decay or contaminate land - which includes household waste); and a lower rate of £2.50 per tonne for inert materials. Until the year 2011, the standard rate will increase by £8 per tonne per year. For the lower rate, there will be an increase from £2 to £2.50. As the chart below shows, previously the annual increases were much smaller.
The greater increases of course impact the costs for you, the producer.
Materials qualifying for the lower (inert) rate are listed in the Schedule to the Landfill Tax (Qualifying Material) Order 1996. They are rocks and soils, ceramics and concrete, unused minerals, furnace slags, ash and low-activity inorganic compounds and water. Calcium sulphate, calcium hydroxide and brine qualify only if they are disposed of in specific containers. A number of substances are also exempt from Landfill Tax. They include dredging, disposals from mines and quarries, and waste from contaminated land clearance.
for more information regarding landfill tax and it’s potential impact…
call 08700 801040 or email martin@selectaskip.co.uk
