Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

Westminster Hall: Refrigerators

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—[Mr. Kemp.]
9.30 am

Angela Watkinson (Upminster): I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the effects of the European Commission's regulation on the safe disposal of waste freezers and refrigerators. It has affected industrial and commercial appliances since October last year, but has also applied to domestic appliances since 1 January this year. Before I highlight the practical problems being experienced by local authorities in implementing the new duties, I will outline the background to the regulation.

The possibility of damage to the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons—that is the last time I will say that word in full—was predicted in 1974. In 1985, the Vienna convention for the protection of the ozone layer was framed to promote precautionary action. In 1997, an international agreement was reached to reduce progressively the use of CFCs and halos—the Montreal protocol to the Vienna convention. That has now been ratified by 156 countries, including all industrialised nations. Recent reports that the United Kingdom faces a growing pile of old refrigerators is perhaps the first obvious impact of the Montreal protocol. In 1999, the United Kingdom agreed to a European directive that would require all CFCs from refrigerators to be recycled from 1 January 2002.

In July 2001, it was brought to the attention of the United Kingdom Government that the directive would also cover insulating foam in the doors and walls of refrigerators. The Government have complained about the late timing of the information passed on by the European Union, but the 1 January deadline caught them unaware. The Minister stated that he did not believe there was a precedent for a delay in the implementation of the directive when the matter had already gone through Brussels. Unfortunately, the Government did not even ask for a delay in the implementation of such a worthy directive. A delay or phased implementation would have eased the many problems now being faced by waste collection and disposal authorities. Sites could have been identified for the recycling of refrigerators and other electrical goods.

The habit of refitting the kitchens of homes when they exchange hands means that many redundant refrigerators are still serviceable and in good condition. If they could be reused, the numbers requiring degassing and disposal, either by high temperature incineration or to landfill, would be reduced. In response to a parliamentary question, the Minister said that up to 3 million domestic refrigeration units are disposed of in the United Kingdom each year. A large number of them seem to be in my constituency.

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Old refrigerators must be treated in one of three ways. The whole refrigerator may be disposed of in an incinerator. That process is expensive, and means that the metal elements of the refrigerator cannot be recycled. It has also been suggested that they can be disposed of abroad. However, refrigerators are now classified as hazardous waste, and thus cannot be exported. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to clarify that point when he sums up. Moreover, transport costs are very high. The best available option is that proposed by the Government: that refrigerators be disposed of in purpose-built reclamation facilities in the United Kingdom. However, the Government do not seem to have made provision for that most sensible means of disposal. Although the Department for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs has allocated £6 million to help local authorities deal with the storage costs of the refrigerators that they cannot dispose of, none of that sum is payable until the next financial year.

Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde): My hon. Friend has rightly alluded to the length of time that it took for the Government to wake up to such matters. Is she aware that the Minister received a letter dated 24 November 2000 from Dixons Group plc that alerted the Government to the ending of both the company's free take-back scheme and the export potential of those refrigerators, and to the consequences? The Government did not react to that timely warning.

Angela Watkinson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his helpful intervention. I have received many letters from retailers about that very point. The potential exists for the retailer take-back method, which offers opportunities for refurbishment and resale, to take 20 per cent. of waste refrigerators from the wastestream. It is a great pity that that method is not available to the retail trade.

Mr. Jack: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene again. She may have noticed that, when I gave her that piece of information, the Minister intimated that he vigorously disagreed. In his reply to the letter that I mentioned, Lord Whitty says:

"A number of questions have arisen during the implementation of Article 11 and we are addressing these problems as a matter of urgency."Is my honourable Friend aware that we learned that refrigerator mountains were beginning to build up in December 2001, yet that letter was written a year earlier? Does she consider that to be a demonstration of urgency of action by the Government?

Angela Watkinson: My right hon. Friend is right, of course. Another problem is that additional costs are piling up on local authorities, which have a duty to collect redundant refrigerators if retailers do not take them back.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr. Michael Meacher): I intend to respond vigorously to all those points when I catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker. Of course we received that letter in September 2000, but I vigorously indicated my dissent because we did not need to be warned by Dixons, as I made perfectly clear

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to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. We were the first to raise the issue with the Commission in February 1999, about 20 months earlier. We took the initiative: we did not need any warning from retailers. The problem was that the Commission did not answer the perfectly proper question that we asked.

Angela Watkinson: Let me give an example. Essex county council has estimated that its costs are expected to be in the region of £1.68 million. So far, its predicted share of the £6 million sum is likely to be in the region of £50,000. The shortfall will have to be found from council tax, at a time when the difference between central Government grant and the spending requirements of local authorities is widening annually at an alarming rate. On the other hand, the East London waste authority, which services my constituency, has yet to learn how much funding it might be given. Havering council accepts and collects, via its bulky refuse collection service, only domestic refrigerators and freezers, which are temporarily stored at a local civic amenity site. Neither Havering nor any of the other ELWA constituent authorities accommodates commercial refrigerators and freezers. Between November and July—a period of only seven months—Havering had almost 5,000 refrigerators and freezers weighing 204 tonnes collected from its civic amenity site by ELWA collection vehicles, which required 153 vehicle movements.

A recent ELWA report highlighted the scope of the problem when it revealed the expectation that the authority would receive between 7,000 and 40,000 units. The speculative nature of the numbers involved illustrates one of the difficulties in planning that service. As the containers have to be stacked for onward shipment to Germany, closed-top containers must be used to meet health and safety and licensing requirements. A short-term contract was let, which allowed the disposal of approximately 5,500 units. However, the report pointed out that ELWA was receiving 574 units a week and that, by the end of June, more than 10,500 units would be stored at its refuse transfer station.

The report went on to identify options and associated costs for the disposal of refrigerators. The option chosen by the board of ELWA was the disposal of all units within the current financial year. The option chosen by the board of ELWA was the disposal of all units within the current financial year. That would have the advantage of clearing the RTS site as quickly as possible, and there would be no burden on future years' expenditure.The total estimated cost for 2002–03, including storage and disposal, is between £750,000 and £1 million. Havering alone, one of ELWA's four constituent authorities, has roughly 95,000 properties. It can expect between 9,500 and 19,000 units a year, depending on the life of a refrigerator; the figures are based on a lifespan of five to 10 years. The council has to offer a free collection service to deter fly tipping, and that is an additional burden on its budget.

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The guidance that outlines the legislative requirements for the collection and disposal of refrigerators is highly prescriptive. It imposes many new duties for which authorities are unprepared both in both practical and financial terms. The standard that practitioners should achieve is an ozone-depleting substance loss of 15 to 25 g per unit, which can be achieved by using a fully automated mechanical recovery plant with an integrated degassing unit. It is anticipated that losses in that range would certainly be acceptable from a Montreal protocol perspective.

The following requirements in the guidance involve techniques that prospective practitioners may not have anticipated: the removal of ozone-depleting substances prior to the storage of the appliance; extraction of both the oil and refrigerant in the same step; and, possibly, the pre-heating of appliances prior to degassing. Best practice would also involve degassing taking place in a controlled environment where fugitive releases of ODS could be recovered. In the interim, the pragmatic decision has been taken that degassing can take place in the open air. Although degassing outside a controlled environment introduces an additional uncertainty regarding the overall ODS recovery efficiency from cradle to grave, it is currently considered acceptable, given the unquantified loss of ODS from handling and transport operations.

The standard licence is for the pre-destruction and storage of refrigeration equipment, including refrigerators. The conditions require the removal of foodstuffs and loose materials, cleaning, and the removal or securing of doors before the refrigerator is put into storage. That is defined as pre-treatment. The storage prior to pre-treatment, and the pre-treatment operation itself, must be undertaken on an impermeable surface. Once the pre-treatment has been done, the refrigerator can be removed to hard-standing for short-term storage of less than 12 months.

If refrigerators are stored for more than 12 months, the compressor must be drained of refrigerant and lubricating oil, and that draining operation must done on an impermeable surface. The standard licence is to be used for the pre-destruction treatment and storage of waste refrigeration equipment only, and is not to be issued without modification in flood risk areas.

The uncertainty about the long-term funding of that highly complex service makes it very difficult for disposal authorities to commit to long-term contracts. That is slowing down the process, and is resulting in a greater backlog than is necessary. The most immediate need is for a fast, non-bureaucratic reimbursement system, backed up by documentation, so that local authorities can forward plan with confidence. They need to be able to expand their local civic amenity sites where electrical goods can be brought for recycling, to provide proper storage facilities, and to form partnerships with refurbishing organisations such as Renew Trust.

Mr. Jonathan Sayeed (Mid-Bedfordshire): Is my hon. Friend aware that some time ago, in answer to a question of mine, the Minister said that the Government would fund any new duty imposed upon a local authority. Is she aware of whether the Government have quantified how much they expect to pay local

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authorities, and whether they have offered funds to those local authorities to help them to prepare for what will undoubtedly be an environmental catastrophe?

Angela Watkinson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because the main thrust of the debate is that local authorities are unprepared, both financially and in practical terms, to deal with those expensive new duties. The £6 million that has been promised will be spread thinly over local authorities across the country, and that will leave an enormous shortfall that local authorities will have to make up out of their council tax.

Mr. Jack: My hon. Friend mentioned the thinness of resource for local authorities to store refrigerators and the fact that the Minister estimates that the cost of disposing of the existing mound of refrigerators will be some £40 million. The trade suggests that it could be as high as £60 million to £70 million. It remains unclear who will pay for the disposal of those refrigerators, let alone what will happen in future.

Angela Watkinson: My hon. Friend is right. Security of funding is necessary for all authorities that deal with the storage or disposal of fridges, to enable them to enter into long-term contracts. Until they can do that, there will be no lessening in impact of either the existing fridge mountain or the one gathering as fridges continue to flow into civic amenity sites throughout the country.

Renew Trust is typical of a refurbishment company that specialises in taking in redundant fridges for resale to housing associations and social services. I understand that legislation to reinstate retailer take-back is not expected before 2004. Interim measures to enable the service to be reinstated before then would greatly benefit that sector of the waste management industry. That would also prepare for the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive, which is wending its way through the European Parliament and will introduce new measures to reuse, recycle and recover all electrical and electronic equipment in order to reduce their disposal to landfill.

The lessons from the fridge disposal debacle need to be learned. The cost impact of the WEEE directive on both large and small businesses as well as waste collection and disposal authorities needs to be assessed. The last thing we want is a computer mountain that makes the fridge mountain look like a molehill.