The energy-from-waste (EfW) industry has rebutted claims made by BBC researchers that incinerating plastic waste is damaging efforts to increase recycling.
A BBC investigation examined five years of data from EfW plants and researchers said they found that burning waste produces the same amount of greenhouse gases for each unit of energy as coal power.
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 15 October reported Professor Hugh Hunt, deputy director of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge, as saying landfill would be a preferable route for plastic waste.
But the Environmental Services Association (ESA) said using EfW was essential and “the need to treat residual waste is a symptom of stagnant recycling performance, not the cause of it.”
According to the BBC there are 52 EfW plants producing between them about 3.1% of the UK’s energy.
It said plastic is made of fossil fuels and consequently burning it produces high levels of greenhouse gases, which the BBC said its findings showed were now the same amount per unit of electricity as if they were burning coal.
Ian Williams, professor of applied environmental science at the University of Southampton, told the BBC that using EfW was an “insane situation [as] the current practice of the burning of waste for energy and building more and more incinerators for this purpose is at odds with our desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
The BBC said numerous applications for EfW plants were progressing through the planning system and nearly half of existing incinerators had secured a capacity increase approved by the Environment Agency without applying for a new permit – which would require public consultation.
Researchers also noted that long-term contracts could prevent local authorities from moving away from EfW even if they wished to.
Freedom of Information requests by the BBC to every UK waste disposal authority found at least £30bn-worth of contracts involving incinerators, some lasting more than 20 years with penalties for early terminations.
Joe Harris, vice chair of the Local Government Association, told the BBC: “If we can adapt those contracts which allows us to reduce the amount of waste going to incineration and if we can boost recycling we want to do that, but we can’t have councils facing financial penalties.”
In a lengthy rebuttal of the BBC’s claims, the ESA said 16 million tonnes of waste were treated across some 60 EfW plants in 2023.
“Historically, this ‘residual waste’ left over after recycling was sent for disposal in landfill but recovering energy from it, using EfW facilities, is now the predominant means of treating residual waste in accordance with the waste hierarchy – the long-standing policy framework which guides decisions about how to most sustainably manage waste materials,” the ESA said.
“It is important to point out that neither local or national policy prioritises the use of waste as a fuel to generate energy over other sources. The energy generated is simply a beneficial by-product of treating waste, which is a vital societal function.”
Disposal to landfill would release the powerful greenhouse gas methane and the ESA cited a 2021 report by consulting engineer Fichtner that estimated the net greenhouse gas emissions of sending one tonne of typical residual waste to landfill at 432.7 kgCO2e, but only 230.9 kgCO2e when EfW is used.
The ESA statement said: “The development of EfW over the past decade has been complementary to efforts to recycle more and is not an impediment to further recycling.
“Stagnant recycling rates are only indicative of a failure to develop recycling policies which, under the prevailing market conditions, have found their equilibrium. EfW facilities simply deal with the waste left over.”
It said claims that EfW locks local authorities into contracts which incentivise them to suppress recycling were “simply misplaced and distracts from the national failure to develop a more circular economy – which the ESA and its members have long campaigned for”.
EfW sector consultant Keith Riley said:”The main purpose of energy-from-waste is not to produce electricity, but to deal with the waste. Solar and wind farms cannot deal with the waste.
“Where the [BBC story] is totally lacking is that it does not discuss the alternatives in terms of what to do with the waste. EfW has removed waste from landfill because they produce an even more damaging gas than CO2.”
Riley added that until humans – “and that includes the people that produced the BBC piece change their behaviour and eliminate non-recyclable waste, we will need EfW”.
The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) said the BBC report had raised some important issues, “but also omits a number of key factors”.
It said EfW is a “well-established and robustly regulated technology, with professional operators responsibly treating over 14 million tonnes of society’s residual waste every year” and had contributed to the move away from landfill, so enabling a major and significant reduction in overall carbon emissions.
CIWM said EfW was “designed as a transition technology, with an average expected operational life of 25-30 years”a period during which regulatory and market development should “incentivise and enable waste prevention and recycling measures to improve overall resource efficiency”.
Tim Otley, national energy director for Suez Recycling and Recovery UK, said: “The energy-from-waste facilities that Suez operates provide an essential service, managing the residual waste left after households have separated out their recycling, on behalf of our local authority customers.
“In many cases facilities also serve the wider community, accepting waste from businesses in the surrounding area and from other local authorities in the region that do not have their own energy-from-waste facility.”
Mark Sommerfeld, deputy director of policy at the Association for Renewable Energy and Clean Technology, said: “Rather than halting energy-from-waste, the new government needs to recognise its broader role within a comprehensive waste management and energy system.
“This includes upholding the principles of the circular economy and the waste hierarchy, alongside increasing investment in recycling infrastructure and ambitious waste reduction programs.
“By doing so, energy-from-waste is used where it is most needed, contributing to a cleaner waste system and hard to decarbonise industries.”
Paul Willacy, managing director of waste-to-hydrogen firm Compact Syngas Solutions, said: “Unfortunately, the research completely overlooks those companies using new techniques and carbon capture to produce clean power and hydrogen.
“We’re pioneering a different approach that turns waste into clean hydrogen fuel rather than directly burning it for electricity.”