Defra's push to co-ordinate waste management activities across the UK has stepped up a gear with an appeal to local authorities to express their interest in forming Joint Waste Authorities (JWAs).

JWAs open the way for local authorities to combine their waste management resources across larger regions, which could make it more cost effective for them to divert waste from landfill to other schemes.

The move to create JWAs is driven largely by the European Commission's Landfill Directive, which calls for the UK, by 2010, to reduce biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill to 75 per cent of that produced in 1995, or 11.2 million tonnes.

"In 2006/07 11.5 million tonnes of BMW went to landfill, falling from 13.9 million tonnes in 2004/05," a Defra spokesperson told BusinessGreen.com. "We are confident that good progress is being made towards meeting the 2010 landfill target. However, we cannot afford to be complacent."

Various studies have shown that much of the waste going to landfill could be disposed of in other ways, such as in energy-from-waste (EFW) incinerators or mechanical biological treatment with refuse-derived fuel (MBT-RDF).

But local authorities acting on their own typically cannot afford to invest in such facilities and do not have the quantities of waste to make them pay. For example, a waste management optimisation study published in April 2007 by AEA Technology for Defra showed that no local authorities acting alone would handle the necessary 400 kilotonnes of waste per year to make investing in a new EFW plant viable.

The report concluded that adoption of such systems was being hampered by political barriers to joint working. "Poor strategic planning and lack of co-operation between different tiers of government limited the ability of the UK to integrate waste management services that realise economies of scale," the report said.

AEA estimated that if all viable alternative technologies to landfill were used optimally, the net saving to the UK would be £607m per annum.

The creation of JWAs, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, aims to sweep away these barriers. The initial consultation period on JWAs, which began in March, ended today.

Defra has allocated £500,000 for 2008/09 to support the development of JWAs and anticipates further funding will be allocated for the following two years. Precise details of how the funding will be distributed are still being developed, but it is envisaged that a large proportion of the funding will be shared between a small number of interested local authority partnerships that are committed to developing a proposal to establish a JWA.

"Any JWA will be set up on a voluntary basis, [and] will need unanimous support from the authorities involved," said environment minister Joan Ruddock. "Authorities will also need to consult locally on any proposals for a JWA."