Restore your landfill site
How to restore your landfill site to meet your permit conditions.
This guide is for landfill site operators, or their contractors, who are restoring a landfill site. Landfill restoration is normally required by planning permission or the landowner.
Landfill restoration is not part of the landfill operation. It is on top of any cap protection layer at landfills for hazardous or non-hazardous waste. It is above the final waste layer at landfills for inert waste. The Environment Agency must authorise restoration if you want to use waste.
Landfill restoration is the placement of an even layer of material on top of the landfill to return the land to beneficial use. It is the creation of a soil profile. If you want to improve an existing soil profile, see the section ‘improve soil quality’.
Landfill restoration does not include raising levels to meet an approved landform under planning control. You must normally achieve contouring and drainage falls during the landfill operation. This is the approved pre- or post-settlement contour plan in your permit.
Restore with non-waste materials
You do not normally need a permit if you restore your site using non-waste materials.
At an installation landfill (listed in schedule 1, section 5.2 of the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016), if the non-waste material could have an effect on pollution, the Environment Agency will include the restoration in your permit. The restoration will be included as a directly associated activity. Directly associated activities are defined by the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016, schedule 1, Part 1, paragraph 1(2). You must manage any risks from the restoration activity through your operating techniques.
Restore with waste materials
If you want to use waste to restore your site, the Environment Agency must authorise it as either a disposal or recovery activity.
Where you restore your site as a disposal activity, you must normally meet the Landfill Directive standards for non-hazardous waste. The Environment Agency can agree to reduce or remove the Landfill Directive standards where you can show there will be little or no additional benefit. You must send the Environment Agency your evidence in a restoration plan or permit variation application.
Where you want to restore your site as a recovery activity, you must show that the waste you will use will perform the same function and be of a similar quality to non-waste material you would otherwise have used.
If you operate a closed landfill, your permit will not normally allow you to accept waste. You must apply to vary your permit if you want to accept waste at your site.
You can treat or store waste for restoration where your permit allows it. You must apply to vary your permit to authorise these activities if it does not.
Assess the risks
You must only use waste that is suitable and fit for purpose, both chemically and physically. The Environment Agency will normally accept your application or restoration plan where you will use both:
- inert waste as subsoil
- topsoil or its equivalent to the British Standard (BS3882:2015)
Where the waste you will use contains contaminants, you must send the Environment Agency a risk assessment.
Waste you use in restoration will be placed outside of engineered contained areas. It poses a potential risk of pollution, for example leaching and runoff causing water contamination, odour or dust.
Where your restoration plan or permit variation application includes a risk assessment, it must show the storage, treatment and placing the waste will not cause pollution.
The risk assessment must consider:
- the nature of the waste and factors relevant to assessing the pollution source term, such as composition and leachability
- pollution pathways and receptors
- proposed end use of the land
- application rate and techniques
You may need to test waste to inform your risk assessment.
The Environment Agency accept a tiered approach to your risk assessment. Read the guide on how to carry out risk assessments for your environmental permit.
Create a restoration plan
Environmental permits for landfill sites normally require you to send the Environment Agency a ‘restoration plan’. You must apply to vary your permit. This allows the Environment Agency to:
- assess your plan
- include it in your permit
It allows them to apply controls over the activity to minimise pollution, for example the waste types and quantities.
The restoration plan must show, for example:
- what you intend to do
- the types and quantity of waste you will use
- that the waste is chemically and physically suitable
- your waste acceptance criteria and procedures
- that the waste will not cause pollution
- the monitoring you will do
- that the activity is for recovery, where necessary
- you do not need to meet the Landfill Directive standards, where the activity is for disposal
You can:
- include your restoration plan in your permit application
- make an application for a separate permit
- apply to vary your landfill permit to include your restoration plan
If the Environment Agency approves it, your restoration plan will be an operating technique in your landfill permit. Your permit will include the types and quantities of waste you can use for restoration.
You must apply to vary your permit if you want to change the types of waste or quantities you use. You must send the Environment Agency a revised restoration plan.
If the restoration is carried out by a third party, for example a contractor, they must apply for a separate permit where they are the operator. Check what an operator is.
If you operate a landfill for inert waste your permit will only allow you to accept inert waste for disposal. If you want to restore your site with non-inert waste, you can either apply:
- to vary your permit and send the Environment Agency a restoration plan
- for a deployment under SR2010 No 5 to create a soil profile
To use a deployment, the person placing the waste (operator) must hold or apply for a standard rules permit. You must comply with those rules and associated generic risk assessment. You must send the Environment Agency a benefit statement for each deployment.
Improve soil quality
If you want to spread waste on top of the restoration soil to improve soil quality (landspreading), the person placing the waste (operator) must apply for a mobile plant standard rules permit and deployment. For example, SR2010 No 4 or 5. You must provide a benefit statement for each deployment. That must describe the improvements that the waste spreading will provide.
Check how to produce a benefit statement in landspreading: produce a benefit statement.
You can apply to include the landspreading activity in your landfill permit. If you do not have representative waste or soil analysis available when you make your permit or variation application, you must apply to vary your permit to include them.
Where the landspreading activity is included in your landfill permit, waste analysis is valid for 12 months. After that you must apply to vary your permit. You must provide:
- new waste analysis results
- a new or revised benefit statement
Treating and storing waste soil
The Environment Agency must authorise the activity if you plan to mix or blend waste or manufacture a soil substitute. They must also authorise any waste you store on site before you use it.
If your landfill permit does not allow waste treatment or storage you must apply:
- to vary your landfill permit to include a waste treatment or storage activity, or both
- for a separate treatment or storage permit, for example where the activity is being managed by a third party
Making up waste settlement
Restored surface levels are normally in the planning permission for the site. Where hazardous or non-hazardous waste settles unevenly, you may need to import soil. This is to return levels to the approved post-settlement contours in your permit.
Where you make up waste settlement with waste, the Environment Agency must authorise it as a disposal or recovery activity.
The Environment Agency will authorise the activity as filling-in work where they approve an application to make up waste settlement as disposal. The Landfill Directive does not apply to filling-in work with inert waste. If you use non-inert waste, you must include a risk assessment with your application. This must show an acceptable risk from the waste you will use. It must also show that the Landfill Directive engineering standards provide little or no additional benefit.
The Environment Agency will authorise a recovery operation where they approve an application to make up waste settlement as recovery. Read deposit for recovery operators: environmental permits.
You can include making up waste settlement in your restoration plan.
You must place the waste:
- above the landfill cap
- under any growth layer
You must apply to vary your permit where:
- it does not allow you to accept waste, for example a closed landfill
- it does not authorise restoration, recovery or filling-in work
- you want to store or treat waste and your permit does not allow it
You must record the area you have made up on a topographic survey.
You do not need to make up waste settlement at landfills for inert waste, pulverised fuel ash or for other wastes that do not settle. You must fill your site to the approved contours in your permit unless the Environment Agency agrees you do not need to in writing.