BIM67460 - Waste disposal: Site preparation: Revenue expenditure

Modern practice is to create within a single site a series of cells each of which is filled with waste material before being sealed. As the original cells are filled further cells are constructed vertically and horizontally such that, over the lifetime of the site, a honeycomb structure results. Over the period that a site is used for waste disposal a large number of such cells will be constructed.

It might be argued that the expenditure on creating the internal walls and temporary surfaces of cells within the external containment structure is capital, because it results in the permanent modification of a capital asset, the site. However, where the economic life, that is the period during which it can receive waste, of a cell is short we accept that the expenditure on creating the internal sub-divisions to create these internal cells is revenue and not, therefore, within ICTA88/S91B. The base, sides and cap of a containment structure that is intended to function for decades remains, however, capital expenditure (see BIM67515).