A WRAP study has shown that the gate fee paid to send material to a MRF has fallen to a median of £9 per tonne.
The Gate Fees Report reveals that the gate fee for MRFs is down from £15 last year.
WRAP director of market economics Steve Creed said: “This year’s Gate Fees Report highlights the growing number of cost-effective alternative waste management options to landfill, underlining the economic and environmental savings we can make if we do not bury our waste in the ground.
“MRF gate fees have continued to fall and are substantially lower than reported in previous surveys. Many local authorities say that they are either not paying gate fees, or are receiving payment for their recovered materials.”
The median landfill gate fee for non-hazardous material, including the standard rate of landfill tax, is £85 per tonne. Landfill site operators noted the competitive marketplace for landfill, with reduced quantities of residual waste and increased competition from other treatments.
For anaerobic digestion, the median gate fee is £41 per tonne, with a range of £35 to £60 per tonne. This compares with a median figure of £42 per tonne in 2011.
While the media gate fee for energy from waste facilities is £65 per tonne with a range of £32 to £101 per tonne. Older facilities (before 2000) tend to have lower gate fees with a median of £64 per tonne, than newer facilities (after 2000) with a median gate fee of £82 per tonne.
Mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilities is £79 per tonne, although WRAP cautions that there are a wide range of facility types and treatment processes that are called MBT so this figure should be considered with caution.
The median gate fee for wood waste collected from household waste recycling centres is £26 per tonne with gate fees higher in the south east than in the north of England and Scotland. It reports that biomass facilities are paying for material rather than charging a gate fee.
