Around 200,000 tonnes of waste is set to be buried after Essex County Council set out its response to Dutch plans to slap a £28-per-tonne tax on the import of foreign waste for incineration.

The Dutch were unable to accept refuse-derived fuel (RDF) while one of the country’s plants underwent refurbishment, but the decision to potentially increase taxes has forced the council to rethink its waste strategy.

It comes amid major problems with the Eco Tovi site in Basildon that currently produces RDF to be sent to the Netherlands for incineration.

The underperforming plant was designed to convert 420,000 tonnes of mixed waste into fuel which could then be burned.

But the plant is still in the testing phase, three years after it was due to be up-and-running.

It is now at the centre of a major dispute between the county council and Urbaser Balfour Beatty (UBB) over claims it is not working properly – the total volume of waste processed at the facility is still significantly well below its design capacity.

But now RDF and municipal solid waste – amounting to 200,000 tonnes – will be sent to landfill at the Bellhouse site near Colchester, with all the costs associated with landfill tax, that is expected to rise to £94 a tonne next year

Green councillor James Abbott said: “If you go back to the original proposals on Basildon we were told Basildon would produce a significant uplift in the Essex overall recycling rate.

“We were told it would produce a valuable commodity that can be traded in the market to provide energy. We were told a lot of things that have not happened.

“I would accept the waste industry is risky but if they had listened that we need a more decentralised solution with larger numbers of medium plants, that would have reduced waste miles and would have given more control in the Essex market.

“They should have been looking more to recovery and recycling, particularly like anaerobic digestion (a process in which micro-organisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen).

“If they had done all those things we think they could have got recycling closer to that bench mark figure of 70 per cent.

“At least the amount of material going to landfill would be less than now and  the cost risk to taxpayers would have been lower.”

The first stage of a bill to put a £28 per tonne levy on the import of RDF has been passed ahead of a final vote in the Dutch Senate that could happen next month.

Any changes may come into effect from January 1, 2020.

Cabinet member for waste, Cllr Simon Walsh, said at a cabinet meeting last Tuesday (November 26) that the county council will keep its procedure to deal with RDF under review.

He said:  “If new opportunities arise to dispose RDF in a more appropriate way such as providing energy from waste then that’s exactly what well do.”

He added that the council will monitor the situation in the Netherlands and respond accordingly.

He said: “We’ll assess that in so much as we’ll assess anything else that comes onto the market.

“It is a very fluid market and clearly we’ll need to do a proper cost analysis and we’ll consider that in the round.”

He added: “I have been assured this in our budget parameters.”

However he did say that in future an environmental impact assessment should be arranged as standard.

He said: “The way the procurement arrangements were set when this framework was established doesn’t really allow for that kind of analysis but we are working to change that. It’s important that this organisation changes its whole way of thinking with regard to the environment.

“This is business as usual, we do need to have a means of disposal of the RDF and clearly with the issues regarding the Netherlands, which has almost pre-empted any kind of Brexit scenario, we did need to have an alternate resource available and clearly this identifies that.

“The existing service orders were to expire anyway in March and so this seeks to carry forward for not only the RDF disposal but really to have the contingency in place for a further 12 months from March 2020 to ensure we as a waste disposal authority can meet our legal obligations.”