Why not burn what we don’t want, to get what we do?

In terms of resources and waste management, the world is facing a major problem. Too much waste, dwindling natural resources and growing expectations from growing populations. Everyone wants warm homes in winter, streets free of litter and electricity and water utilities on demand.

But demand is growing exponentially and becoming a challenge. Not just because of growing populations, but because of our modern unsustainable lifestyle where we mass produce everything. Mass production requires manufacturing that sucks up resources, it requires packaging and distribution, and it delivers products to consumers en- mass, and it also delivers mass volumes of waste. Now we’re running out of ways to deal with it.

Some believed that we could recycle our way out of the problem, but non standardisation of packaging, complex processes and insufficient facilities result in massive volumes of waste still being sent to landfill. Landfill taxes and environmental regulations have somewhat slowed that as a default, but haven’t provide a feasible alternate solution. Is Energy from Waste (EfW) a better solution for non-recyclable waste? After all, we need energy resources.

EfW is a controversial topic. Some believe that it’s the ideal solution to the ever-growing waste and energy demand problems. Recycling can’t keep pace and fossil fuels are a no-no in terms of resources to burn, so why not use the (waste) resources that nobody wants, that can’t be easily processed and that only end up polluting landfills.  From that perspective, it’s not hard to see it as a win.

Yet, development of EfW facilities are consistently met with opposition. Communities believe they will pollute the air with toxic fumes. In fact, a controversial BBC article claimed that EfW facilities emitted the same volume of green house gasses as coal fired power plants. Industry comments suggest that the article doesn’t tell the whole story, nor does it take into account comparisons of methane emissions from landfill. Still, a news article like this typically influence public opinion and hinder further EfW facility development.  

We explore some of the beliefs surrounding EfW and offer our perspective of how it could fit into being a potential solution for meeting energy demand and better managing waste resources.

Community Concerns about toxic pollution

Anyone that has burnt a plastic bag, knows the noxious fumes this emits. It’s not a big leap from that to assume that burning tonnes of residual waste will result in foul smelling pollution.  This is exactly the assumption that most communities make when they hear an EfW facility is planned near them.

In reality, with education and engagement, communities quickly realise that there is much more to the process than simply burning waste in an incinerator. However, access to the information with which to make an unbiased and considered opinion, whilst only a web search away, isn’t particularly easy to digest. This report, from 2014 is 74 pages long, and provides a decent overview of the market. This report, a 287 page assessment of particulate matter emissions from EfWs, is interesting, informative, yet very long and detailed. If you trust the BBC report, then EfW is just as “dirty” as burning coal. It’s not quite that simple though.

With a renewed focus on food and organic waste, alternatives are to use the methane produced from this waste as an alternative to natural gas. Currently, the infrastructure and facilities aren’t in place to achieve this at scale. With investment, this promises a viable alternative to fossil fuels and reducing emissions.

An additional area to EfW is carbon capture. While this is not commonplace for current EfW facilities in the UK, it has successfully been implemented in other countries such as Japan, Norway and The Netherlands. Carbon capture would address the emissions concern and ideally should be retrofitted to EfW facilities, but this would require extensive investment. Unless there’s regulation driving the need to urgently undertake the retrofits, facilities may delay implementation until there’s a stronger incentive to do so.

Even without carbon capture, communities often don’t realise that facilities still have to abide by environmental emissions regulations, specifically with regards to pollutants. While GHG emissions remain a valid point, though we could debate that long into the night, toxic pollutants should be less of a concern if facilities are environmentally compliant, and the emissions data supports this. Let’s not forget that methane is a significant issue, one that EfWs help combat. Globally, we’re a tiny proportion of overall emissions and impact. Not that we shouldn’t be focussed on GHG reductions, as long as it’s balanced against costs and other benefits.

Hindering improvement of recycling rates

When landfill taxes were introduced, it proved to be a powerful incentive to recycle more. Recycling rates impressively increased from an average 5% to 45%. Unfortunately, aside from a few exceptions, they’ve plateaued at this level for several years.

There are concerns that EfW is part of the problem with many recyclables being included in residual waste that gets sent to the incinerators. It’s a simple solution to a major waste problem, but is it the right one? The challenge is that many recycling facilities are already stretched to meet the demand, will they have the capacity if more recyclables can be separated from residual waste?

In an ideal world we won’t have residual waste and all resources will remain in circulation, but that circular economy utopia is still very far off. Until we can get to that point EfW has an important interim role to play in helping to grow energy generation and managing growing waste volumes.

Investing in waste infrastructure that’ll eventually become obsolete is foolish

This is the argument that springboards off the premise that EfW should only be an interim and not permanent long-term solution. The facilities are costly to develop and operate, especially if they have added carbon capture facilities. Should massive investment be made if feedstock volumes are set to decline over time?

This is a valid debate, if you were looking at a timeline of less than 5 years. But given the volumes of waste that communities and industries continue to produce, it’s unlikely these feedstocks will decline rapidly in the next decade. By contrast demand for energy will increase – especially with AI development growing exponentially, and the development of electric vehicles. Data centres alone are set to add massively to energy demand. With this is mind, there is still value in investing in EfW, given that it addresses two of the major issues we’re facing.