Green Waste revisited

The nation owes a debt of gratitude to its metal detector enthusiasts. As I will explain, individually and collectively they have identified a serious environmental disaster that must be averted.

At first glance, the concept of spreading garden waste across farmland seems to be an excellent idea more “green” than burying it in landfill sites. The idea has been taken up with enthusiasm by councils across the country, encouraged by a combination of financial incentives and regulations to reduce, if not eliminate, landfill. Indeed, local authorities, spurred on by Government targets, compete against one another to see who can collect the most recycling materials. In principle, that is a worthy objective, but it has led to unintended consequences in the collection of so-called green waste from gardens. Once, households had their own compostheaps. Istilldo. Thatisonebasicweshould go back to.

It is those serious, environmentally damaging consequences that I shall highlight this evening, in the hope that action will be taken with immediate effect by central and local government to prevent any further damage to the soil and water courses as a result of the contamination caused by discarded materials mixed in with what is often wrongly described as green waste and spread on food-producing fields.

I was first alerted to this worrying situation on 7 June this year, when a constituent, Mr Stuart Elton, attended my advice bureau. Metal detecting is hishobby. What he told me appalled me. Nowadays, when he and fellow metal detecting enthusiasts, with the permission of the land owner, go out looking for buried treasures from the past they are more likely to find a wide variety of metal, cut, crushed and mashed among the rotting green waste. That is not so much a needle in a haystack, but rather the contents of a scrapyard strewn across fields.

That led me to write to the president of the National Council forMetalDetecting, MrJohn Wells. Iwaskeen to learn more about the matter, both from a metal-detecting perspective and because of the obvious pollution and environmental consequences that my constituent had drawn to my attention. In due course, Mr Wells travelled from hishome in Coventry to have a meeting with me at the House of Commons, which in turn led me to apply for tonight’s debate.

There was a time when the world of archaeology was variously sniffy or even hostile to those engaged in metal detecting, claiming that such activity was harmful to archaeological sites and discoveries. Quite often landowners were oblivious to what was going on. That is no longer the case. The National Council for Metal Detecting and its members have an excellent record of partnership working with allinterested partiesand havebeen responsibleforsome breath-taking finds that have added to the sum of our knowledge of the past. As I represent the first capital of Roman Britain, Iam delighted to report thatin Colchesterwe have an excellent metal detectors group, whose members epitomise best practice. It is currently full, with 100 members, and has a waiting list. As recently as 30 November, its chairman, MrsSueClarke, was reported in the Colchester Daily Gazette as saying: “Colchester is a great place to be part of a metal-detecting group. There is so much history around here. There is never a boring rally.”

The term “rally” in this context refers to members, with the permission of a landowner, going as a group to search for artefacts.

To get back to the subject of my debate the consequences of the contamination of green waste I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the serious environmental and pollution issues literally cannot be covered up any longer. Not everyone in the green waste industry is up to the job, whether we are talking about deliberate deceit or failure to comply with the strict regulations. The Minister’s briefing will, I trust, include accounts of people being prosecuted for spreading pollutants and other contaminated material along with so-called green waste.

One example that I have been told about involves a company called Vital Earth GB Ltd, which, in August this year, was fined £75,000, with costs of £13,535, at Derby magistrates court for offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.Thecompostdelivered bythecompanyto afarmerwas found to be contaminated with mixed waste, such as plastics, paper and metals, including kitchen knives, bottle tops and cigarette lighters not at all environmentally friendly, and not friendly to those engaged in metal detecting, either. The compost quality protocol states that if quality compost is mixed with other waste materials, the resulting mix will be considered to bewaste, and will therefore be subject to waste regulatory controls. Spreading it across England’s green and pleasant land is not what should happen to it.

After the court hearing in Derby, an Environment Agency official said: “This is a serious environmental crime. By depositing controlled waste Vital Earth have fallen significantly short of their environmental duties. We will not hesitate to prosecute in such cases.”

Perhaps the Minister could state how many prosecutions there have been under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 against those who have contaminated fields with compost that contains contaminated materials. This serious crime of pollution, which affects fields growing crops for human and animal consumption, and watercourses into which the pollution leaks, is a matter that needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency.

Mr Elton told me that a colleague contacted him to say that “afarm nearColchesteriscovered in thestuff and isvirtually undetectable. How long will it be before the whole of the Colchester area is affected?”

This afternoon he e-mailed me to wish me luck with the debate, and added: “Although it was my metal detecting interests that brought me to this problem originally, having seen the dreadful state of some of the treated fields I believe everyone would want to stop this non-biodegradable rubbish turning our countryside into one big landfill site.”

I have been provided with other eye-witness accounts that include references to finding, in “green waste” on fields, medical waste, such as bandages. Another metal detector enthusiast observed that “many local historical sites are becoming saturated in aluminium and making it extremely difficult to recover metallic artefacts such as coins and brooches and that side of things, whilst not as important as the food we eat or environment we live in, will affect our national heritage and academic learning from the past.”

Mr Alan Charlish, from the West Midlands, reports that “Despite the known problems of contaminated compost we in the UK are allowing the stuff to be spread across our fields without, it seems, any form of control. It is not only the obvious contamination that we as metal detectorists see all the time, such as old batteries, various metals, plastics, etc, it is also the unseen chemicals that are going in.”

He added: “Left much longer the problems will become irreversible. The fact is that despite the claims that screening takes place there are so many contaminants that are entering the food chain via local authority recycling schemes.”

As if those problems were not enough, I have been advised that we must now add ash dieback to the unwelcome ingredients in green waste, because leaves from infected trees are apparently finding their way on to farmers’ fields. I understand that last week, a soil conference conducted by the all-party group on agro-ecology was held at the House of Commons. Variousspeakersdiscussed theneed forgood soil and protection of the environment.

In addition to drawing the Minister’s attention to that meeting, I wish to advise him of the magazine “Digging Deep” which is published by the National Council for Metal Detecting. In issue 9 Mr Wells sets out the concerns of his members about the problem that is the subject of my debate.

I sense that what I have told the House this evening is only a snapshot of a major national scandal. The UK is the fourth largest producer of cereal and oilseeds in Europe, with cereals grown on more than 70,000 farms. There are more than 42,000 beef and dairy farms in England and Wales.

In his article Mr Wells states: “Green waste is biodegradable waste that can be composed of garden or park waste, such as grass or flower cuttings and hedge trimmings, as well as domestic and commercial food waste. The differentiation green identifies it as high in nitrogen, as opposed to brown waste which is primarily carbonaceous.

This definition identifies those elements that when composted singly ortogetherform nitrogen rich materialthat when added to existing soil serves to enrich and aid development of plants and crops.”

Thus, in theory, the spreading of green waste on farmland is sensible. Sadly, the reality is different. As Mr Wells so rightly observes: “The so-called green waste now being spread upon fields cannot be classed as green waste. A high percentage of the content is not compostable and needs to be controlled in exactly the same way as refuse going to landfill or incineration plants.”

In his article he explains how things go wrong in the collection of garden waste, its onward transfer to a contractor, and the manner in which it is then processed and finally spread on fields. Frequently, at each stage, there are failures, the consequences of which are catastrophic.

Elsewhere Mr Wells writes: “Farmers, in the belief that they are doing the right thing for the community, are being conned, and have their land contaminated with plastic, aluminium, glass and all kinds of other products, containing chemicals and substances which not only destroys the appearance of the countryside but also puts at risk the health of wildlife, our waterways and our human beings.

Thousands of tonnes of this toxic rubbish, containing syringes, bottles, gloves, toys, glass someof which willnot decay for hundreds of years are being tipped on the fields each year.”

I conclude with a rallying cry from the president of the National Council for Metal Detecting, which I am confident will be echoed by every environmental campaigner in the country: “The dumping of green waste on farm land is not only ruining our hobby, it is also contaminating the land for decades to come. If this continues, metal detecting in this country will become a thing of the past. The dumping of this material is nothing short of legalised fly-tipping and has to be stopped.”

I invite the Minister to promise the necessary action to do just this.

Hansard 12th December 2012

John Wells is the Chairman of the Midland Federation of ARMD and a voluntary consultant for AMDS.