The Government has ruled out the introduction of landfill bans in England despite admitting ‘further work is needed’ to meet 2020 EU targets.

The previous Labour administration published a consultation in March on the landfilling of certain wastes. In its response, the Coalition Government said it was ‘not minded to introduce landfill bans in England at the present time, but will reach a view on the best way to achieve zero waste to landfill as part of the waste policy review’.

However, the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has backed the introduction of landfill bans and is currently considering a provision to introduce measures as part of the Waste (Wales) Measure.

The majority of respondents to the consultation supported some form of landfill ban, either for all or some waste types. Only 34 of the 138 responses thought there was not a case for a ban on all or most of the waste types proposed – paper/card, food, wood, green waste, textiles, metals, plastics and glass; and the categories of biodegradable waste and non-segregated waste.

But the Local Government Association welcomed the announcement. ‘At a time when council budgets are under unprecedented pressure it is encouraging that the Government has listened to councils and decided not to go ahead with a ban on landfilling certain types of waste,’ said cllr Gary Porter, chair of the LGA environment board. ‘It needs to be up to local authorities to decide how they get rid of people’s rubbish.’

In a separate consultation on meeting EU landfill targets, the Government hinted it might scrap the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) after 2013, and noted that landfill tax is now considered a ‘greater driver than LATS’.

‘Local authorities may need to carefully consider whether they wish to enter into trading of LATS allowances after this time [2013],’ the Government added.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed this week that the UK would meet the 2010 Landfill Directive target. A Defra spokesman said ‘good progress’ was being made towards meeting the 2013 target of limiting the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill to 17.84mt.

Meanwhile, the amount of biodegradable waste sent to landfill in Wales has dropped by nearly 40% over the past five years.

Welsh environment minister Jane Davidson said: ‘Every local authority in Wales is rolling out separate food waste collections, and I have committed £34m between 2009 and 2011 to ensure as many households as possible have access to these services.’