Operations & enforcement
What is landfill tax?
Landfill tax is a tax on waste disposed of at a landfill site, charged per tonne at a standard rate and a lower rate for qualifying inert material. It is what makes landfill the expensive option.
It is levied on the landfill operator and passed through in gate fees, which is why the cost of disposal responds to it directly and why diversion has an obvious commercial logic.
The distinction between the standard and lower rates turns on whether the material qualifies as inert. Contaminating a load of qualifying material moves the whole load to the standard rate.
It is also charged on unauthorised disposals, which is one of the routes by which fly-tipping becomes expensive for those involved rather than only for the landowner.
What goes wrong in practice
- Inert loads contaminated, moving the whole load to the standard rate.
- Rates assumed to be static when they are set annually.
- Tax liability not understood at all by businesses buying disposal on a per-lift basis.