The
UK ships about 3m tonnes of waste a year to the EU, most of it household rubbish. Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy
Exclusive: leaked emails
show officials planning crisis centres to manage halt in waste
exports to EU.
Government officials are preparing to deal with “putrefying stockpiles”
of rubbish in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to documents leaked
to the Guardian.
If the UK leaves the EU
without a deal on 29 March, export licences for millions of tonnes of waste
will become invalid overnight.
Environment Agency (EA) officials said leaking stockpiles
could cause pollution.
The EA is also concerned that if farmers cannot export beef and lamb, a backlog
of livestock
on farms could cause liquid manure
stores to overflow
. A senior MP said the problems could cause a public health and environmental pollution
emergency. An EA source said: “It could all get very ugly, very quickly.”
The emails leaked to the Guardian were sent to EA
staff, asking for 42 volunteers to staff
crisis management centres that would
deal with incidents. On Tuesday the chief executive of the civil service
revealed plans to move up to 5,000 staff into an emergency command and
control centre in the
event of no deal.
An EA email sent on Thursday, labelled “importance: high”, said crisis
centres could go live on 18 February and run from 7am to 8pm seven days a week,
with plans to operate 24/7 if needed. To explain the potential tasks, the email
gave two examples:
1.- “If there is a no-deal scenario, the current
export of waste may cease for a period. This could result in stockpiled waste
which causes licence breaches,”
the email said. “Odours will obviously be an issue as the stockpiled waste
putrefies and there may be runoff
of leachates
, causing secondary pollution.”
The email said the waste could become a high-profile issue. “It will
quickly escalate into a political one because the operators will state that
they have no means to move the waste.”
2.- The second example related to animal slurry
. “Problems may arise in exporting livestock to the EU. In that situation,
farmers may be overstocked
and unable to export lamb/beef etc. That
means that they may have problems with slurry storage capacity and insufficient land spreading capability.”
The EA source said: “The examples seem like real possibilities. There’s a
serious amount of panic going on.”
One of the emails told EA staff: “We are interested in any volunteers
across [the environment and business division] no matter what their level of
experience is, their grade, location or incident knowledge.”
Mary Creagh, the chair of parliament’s environmental audit committee, said:
“The UK’s waste and recycling system is
already fragile but these shocking
emails show it will grind
to a halt if customs
checks and WTO tariffs
prevent the export of millions of tonnes of waste.”
“No deal would be a green light to criminal fraudsters and create a public
health and environmental pollution emergency. EA officials should not carry the
can for the failings of government to get a deal through and this shows how hollow
the prime minister’s promises were about protecting the environment if we leave
the EU.”
An EA spokesman said: “As with the whole of government and the rest of the
public sector, we are preparing responsibly for all scenarios as we exit the
EU.”
As well as recycling waste, the UK ships about 3m tonnes of rubbish a year
to the EU to be burned in incinerators that generate electricity. Most of this
is household rubbish, which is sometimes shredded
and has metal removed before being sent abroad.
If waste has to be stockpiled after a no-deal Brexit, industry experts say
the populous south-east of England would be worst affected. The UK’s lack of
incinerator capacity and shrinking
number of landfill
sites drives the exports………..
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