Who should pay for the landfill tax on disposable nappies?

Landfill tax according to HM Revenue and Customs web site is a tax on the disposal of waste. It aims to encourage waste producers to produce less waste.

Most disposable nappy waste from households is sent to landfill. Currently landfill tax is based on weight and is charged at £56 per tonne rising to £72 in April 2013 and £80 in 2014. The average baby wearing disposable nappies (4-6,000, from birth to two and a half years) produces 874kg of nappy waste ie nearly a tonne.

According to new french documentary Couchorama the UK sends 850,000 tonnes of nappy waste to landfill every year. So in 2012 that will be £47.6 million landfill tax (at £56 per tonne).

The question is, who are the 'waste producers' that pay the landfill tax on nappy waste? In the case of other products that are taxed to reduce consumption and pay for costs of consumption eg alcohol, tobacco and petrol it is the consumer who pays ie when you buy alcohol, cigarettes fuel for your SUV you pay tax to the government, supposedly to deter you from buying so much of the offending product.

However, in the case of disposable nappies it is every UK tax payer that pays. The cost of landfill tax on nappy waste is shared by all of us, even if we don't produce any nappy waste.

SO WHO SHOULD PAY THE GOVERNMENT THE LANDFILL TAX ON DISPOSABLE NAPPY WASTE?

a) Huge multinational companies,
Procter & Gamble/P&G (Pampers) and Kimberley Clark (Huggies)
that have 85% of disposable nappy market worldwide?
(A market worth in excess of US$ 10 billion)

b) Huge supermarket chains that sell them?
(And use them as loss leader to lure sleep deprived shoppers into their stores)  Buy one for £1, two for £3.  Gotcha!

c) Customer who buys disposable nappies?
(because they don't know that modern washable nappies save them money and are easy to use)

d) Bounty, the registered 'charity' that markets free promotional disposable nappies (amongst other products that no one needs) to every expectant mother in the UK?

e) Every tax payer in the country, whether or not they have ever put their child in a disposable nappy?
- that includes pensioners who definitely won't have as they were only invented 30 years ago

f) Other?


Related issues:
How much corporation tax do P&G and Kimberley Clark pay UK Government. Does anyone know?

Who pays for the Knowaste nappy recycling experiment?

What is the cost of cleaning up the landfill leachate after a landfill is closed?