ungvar/Shutterstock
UK government proposals to increase the cost of sending soil to landfill have received strong pushback from the construction industry. But there is a strong environmental case for protecting healthy soils in this way.
The Treasury plans to up the cost of sending rock, soil and other “inert” materials to landfill. Charges could rise from £4.05 to up to £125 per tonne of soil landfilled by 2030. [Concerns have been raised](https://www.thetimes…
ungvar/Shutterstock
UK government proposals to increase the cost of sending soil to landfill have received strong pushback from the construction industry. But there is a strong environmental case for protecting healthy soils in this way.
The Treasury plans to up the cost of sending rock, soil and other “inert” materials to landfill. Charges could rise from £4.05 to up to £125 per tonne of soil landfilled by 2030. Concerns have been raised that this tax increase will be damaging for the construction industry and a major hindrance to meeting the UK government’s targets on new homes.
But as soil scientists working with practitioners across the planning and construction industry in England, we see many benefits to increasing the cost of sending soil to landfill.
The amount of soil going to landfill in the UK is staggering. Soil is one of the largest components of our waste streams: in 2020, it made up almost 60% of the material received by UK landfills.
In England alone in 2021, around 25 million tonnes of soil went to landfill. That’s about eight times more than the total amount of soil thought to be eroded across all farmland in England and Wales annually.
Since most of this soil comes from construction sites, it’s easy to assume this is contaminated. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. Only 1.5% of soils arriving at waste facilities in England in 2021 were classed as hazardous, suggesting we are throwing away mostly healthy, usable soil.
Soil is not inert. It plays vital roles in reducing flood risk, boosting biodiversity and storing carbon.New Africa/Shutterstock
This is a massive loss of a vital natural resource. Soil isn’t easily replaced. It can take hundreds to thousands of years to form a single centimetre.
And soil is not just inert dirt: it is thought to be the biggest biodiversity reservoir on Earth, hosting more than half of the world’s species. Every truckload sent to landfill is an ecosystem destroyed – a piece of our natural heritage more or less gone for good.
While some degree of soil removal during building is inevitable, a lot more is being removed than is necessary, according to our research, to “get the muck away” and make sites easier to work on. When soils are excavated, damaged or removed from construction sites, the vital functions they provide are also being stripped away.
Different types of soil help regulate the flow and storage of water in the landscape, for example. A metre of healthy soil can hold up to 60cm of rainfall. Maintaining healthy soils in the built environment can help reduce flood risk, making our towns and cities better able to cope with extreme weather.
Removing soils during development can also make it harder and more expensive to establish and maintain gardens, trees and shared greenspaces that play an important role in our wellbeing and urban cooling.
Soil-smart building
In our experience, many people in the construction industry recognise there’s a huge opportunity to manage soils better through the planning and construction process, producing benefits for both industry and communities.
By reducing the amount of soil that’s unnecessarily excavated or sent offsite, projects can cut both the financial and carbon costs associated with moving and disposing of this material. Better soil management could also save money later on, reducing the need to buy new topsoil for landscaping or costly remediation work to fix drainage and plant establishment problems.
Read more: How healthy soils make for a healthy life
Increasing the cost of sending soil to landfill could act as a powerful incentive for developers to think more carefully about how soil is managed during construction.
At present, the price of disposal in the UK is up to ten times cheaper than in much of Europe and the US. This low cost makes it far too easy to simply dump soil, discouraging industry innovation and good practice.
However, increasing landfill costs need to go hand-in-hand with better support for soil reuse. Encouragingly, the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has committed to piloting a new soil reuse scheme across England, aimed at reducing the amount of soil that ends up being classed as waste – with a planned start date in 2026.
Ideally, this scheme would be rolled out alongside the landfill reforms. This could help the construction sector make better use of valuable soil resources, while preventing potential unintended consequences such as illegal dumping as landfill prices rise.
This is about establishing strong climate-resilient foundations for healthy green spaces which enhance our wellbeing and community connections. Sending soils to landfill is damaging to society and it should not be cheap and easy to do. It’s time we stop treating these amazing ecosystems like inert dirt.
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Jess Davies receives funding from UKRI research councils. She is affiliated with the Soils in Planning and Construction Task Force.
*John Quinton receives funding from UKRI research council, the EU and Defra. He is affiliated with the Soils in Planning and Construction Task Force (soilstaskforce.com). *