RCEP gets soil strategy, review of waste spreading on land

The Government has accepted the main recommendation of last year's report on soil by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP), announcing that a draft soil protection strategy will be published in the spring. Reviews of existing controls on the disposal of sewage sludge and industrial wastes to land have also been promised. But the Government has accepted few of the RCEP's recommendations for discouraging development on greenfield sites, accelerating the clean-up of contaminated land, limiting peat extraction or integrating soil protection into agricultural support mechanisms.