Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to public purse of sending waste to landfill sites in each of the last three years.

The Government has not made an estimate of the total cost to the public purse of sending waste to landfill sites in the last three years. The available data shows that the total cost to local authorities of managing waste was £3.4 billion in 2017/18; in the same year local authorities sent 3.2 million tonnes (12.5% of their waste) to landfill, down from 22 million tonnes (78.5%) in 2000/01.