Transfrontier Shipment of Waste – November 2021 Summary
This article is available as a downloadable PDF here.
The latest waste export figures from the Environment Agency show a year-on-year tonnage decline of 15% (12 months to September 2021 vs same period 2020). Waste exports (as covered by Transfrontier Shipment (“TFS”) regulations) are dominated by the movement of Refuse-Derived Fuels (“RDF”) and these volumes have been impacted by a range of familiar factors such as lack of haulage drivers, cost of shipping fuel and Brexit complications, along with some RDF-specific aspects like the imposition of a hefty waste import tax in the Netherlands and expansion of Energy from Waste (“EfW”) capacity in the UK. Nonetheless, some destinations appear to have a consistent requirement of UK RDF, notably Sweden, so it is certainly not the case that RDF exports are in terminal decline.
Chemical waste exports have risen significantly in the past year (+45% growth), and this is even higher than pre-Covid levels. The root cause of this increase is the export of used oils to Denmark, primarily waste lubricating, gearbox or crankcase oils as mixed EWC consignments. Acid / alkali / salt waste exports to Germany have also grown dramatically, albeit from a small base. Most of this is comprised of EWC 10 03 08* (salt slag from secondary production, mainly from aluminium recovery).
Conversely, Off-Specification Chemical Wastes have fallen by 28% year-on-year. Much of this fall can be attributed to a reduction in exports of EWC 18 01 06* (dilute ethanol) to Dislaub in France. With this one code removed, the decline is a modest -12%, relatively stable in these uncertain times.
Wood waste exports (within the Non-Metallic Wastes category) are down by 8% year-on-year, with all of the 98,000 tonnes heading to Sweden to a biofuel sourcing company, for energy recovery.
An interactive online report – the ‘TFS Overview Dashboard’ – is available from Footprint Services, allowing users to delve and burrow into the data, identifying trends, notifiers and consignees by EWC code. Please get in touch for more information. See website for contact details.
