Gate Fees Summary (2014-2024)
Notes (from LetsRecycle):
LANDFILL: The landfill rate price indicators are for gate fees into landfill for a range of standard waste materials. Inert or inactive landfill fees are lower than the price paid for landfill standard material, letsrecycle.com does not publish gate fees for inert material.
ENERGY FROM WASTE: Prices shown are gate-fees for mixed waste supplied to larger energy from waste plants. Gate-fees will vary in terms of the volume of material supplied, contract length and location. Higher gate fees will be charged for hazardous and other special wastes at appropriate treatment facilities.
REFUSE DERIVED FUEL (RDF): RDF is a mixture of shredded materials such as paper, plastics and wood from the municipal or commercial waste stream. Prices shown are for material collected ex works (i.e. collected by the buyer) from the company preparing the baled waste which is often sent for energy recovery in Holland, Sweden or Germany. Some RDF is used in the UK. A higher grade of RDF is known as SRF (Solid Recovered Fuel). Preparation of RDF can incur a cost of £15+ to cover sorting, baling, wrapping. Gate fees shown excludes SRF price indicators – gate fees for SRF are lower than for RDF although SRF costs more to produce.
Outlook for 2025:
LANDFILL: Landfill tax for general (non-inert) waste is set to rise by 20% in April 2025. It is anticipated that this will drive more waste out of landfill as the cost increase provides a sufficient jolt to those companies or local authorities still habitually landfilling waste. In 2023, around 9 million tonnes of general waste (EWC 191210, 191210, 200301 and 200307) was sent to landfill.
ENERGY FROM WASTE: There is likely to be a significant reduction in new sites being approved for development once the facilities already under construction are completed. Any fresh developments will be required to prove the need for that facility in that area, and demonstrate that it will not have a detrimental impact on recycling rates. Nonetheless, around 3 million tonnes of extra capacity is expected to go live in 2025. Ordinarily, it might be supposed that this would cause gate fees to fall, with sites needing to be more competitive to retain feedstock. However, the rise in landfill tax will allow energy from waste sites to maintain existing gate fees.
RDF EXPORTS: In 2024, 1.8 million tonnes of RDF was exported from England. The 2025 figure is expected to be similar.