The West Midlands faces a landfill crisis with dumps set to be full in five to six years.
The region’s tip capacity time bomb is second only to that of the South West, whose dumps look likely to fill up quickest, according to the latest data from waste management experts BusinessWaste.co.uk.
When a region reaches zero landfill capacity, councils must send waste to other parts of the country or rely more heavily on energy-to-waste plants.
Both options are more expensive because councils must pay additional gate fees and must pay to transport waste longer distances.
It also means the council no longer has any nearby facility that can absorb sudden increases in waste, for example, after storms, floods, major events or large commercial clear-outs.
West Midlands landfills set to be full in five to six years
The West Midlands is projected to be the second region to run out of landfill space, having lost 40.9% capacity in five years.
In 2020, it had 59.9 million m³ of capacity, but in five years, it had decreased to 35.4 million m³. Much of this is held in Wychavon (4.43 million m³), Sandwell (5.15 million m³), Nuneaton and Bedworth (3.82 million m³), Cannock Chase (3.1 million m³) and Rugby (3.48 million m³).
In its current state, the region could reach zero landfill capacity in under six years, Business Waste warned.
‘The UK needs to act more sustainability and recycle more’
Mark Hall, waste management expert, said: “Landfill is disappearing faster than most people realise.
“Several UK regions are only a few years away from having no legal landfill space left, and this should be a wake-up call for us as a country to act more sustainably and recycle more, before it is too late.
“If we don’t reduce what we throw away, and improve recycling and recovery systems, we will see more pressure on councils, who are already overstretched, as well as an even bigger increase in illegal waste dumping.”
Nationwide view regon by region
- The full dataset for the whol country can be seen here.
Landfills in the South West have the highest chance of becoming full the quickest, said Business Waste. The region has lost 45.1% of its landfill capacity since 2020, decreasing from 29.6 million m³ to 16.2 million m³ in 2024, with the capacity loss concentrated in a few local authorities.
