Greenhouse gases: waste and recycling rates ‘could stop UK net zero goal’
Rising greenhouse gas emissions from the incineration of waste and stagnating recycling rates will stop the UK reaching net zero by 2050, according to analysis presented to government.
Experts who advise ministers on key areas of infrastructure spending highlight waste and recycling as a key area of concern.
Recycling rates in the UK are lower than in many other European countries, and have plateaued since 2013. Meanwhile burning waste to produce energy has increased in the past six years causing total greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector to rise, the National Infrastructure Commission said in a report on Monday.
Just over 4% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 came from the waste sector, which produced 22 megatonnes of CO2. Energy from waste incinerators produced about 5 MtCO2, nearly a quarter of the total emissions from the sector.
While energy from waste incineration has increased, rates of recycling – the preferred government option for waste to reduce its environmental impact – has stagnated, the NIC said in its baseline report.
“The significant decrease in local authority waste going to landfill has been accompanied by a greater proportion being incinerated for energy recovery rather than recycled or composted in England. This has caused waste emissions to rise since 2014,” the NIC said.
“The net zero target is a key driver for change in the waste sector over the next three decades.
“An increasing reliance on energy from waste, alongside stagnating recycling levels, will make it difficult to achieve net zero emission targets without carbon capture and storage technologies.”
The authors said further progress on greenhouse gas reduction was needed to meet net zero emissions by 2050.
Reduction, reuse and recycling are the top priority choices in UK government policy for waste. But recycling rates are stagnating at about 43%; far off a target of 64% by 2035, which the government has signed up to in its Resources & Waste Strategy.
The move by local authorities to increased energy from incineration is deeply controversial in many areas. In north London campaigners are fighting an expansion in an energy-from-waste incinerator which serves seven authorities. The recycling rate in the area is about 30% – below the national average.
Recycling is a cheaper option for local authorities. Over the year 2020-21, households paid an average of £29 for recycling, compared with £95 for waste disposal, the report said.
England generated 187m tonnes of waste in 2018, a rise of 12% in 10 years. Local authorities in England collected 26m tonnes of waste in 2018/9.
Use of landfill – which made GHG emissions peak in the mid-90s – has plummeted since the introduction of a landfill tax. Landfill still accounts for 14 megatonnes of CO2 annually, more than half the total emissions from the waste sector. The report points out that emissions from energy recovery plants are still significantly lower than landfill and displace emissions that would otherwise be created by alternative forms of electricity generation.
The former chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs warned MPs in 2018 against further investment in energy-from-waste capacity in the UK, saying they encouraged the production of more waste to feed them.
Prof Ian Boyd said: “Incineration is not a good direction to go in. I think that if you are investing many tens of millions, hundreds of millions, in urban waste incineration plants – and those plants are going to have a 30- to 40-year lifespan – you have to have the waste streams to keep them supplied.
“Now, that is the market pull on waste, so it encourages the production of waste, it encourages the production of residual waste, it encourages people to think that we can throw what could be potentially valuable materials … into a furnace and burn them.”
A spokesperson for the North London Waste Authority, which is building the new incinerator in Edmonton, said: “Our number one objective is to produce less waste and recycle more. Right now our recycling rate is about 30% but we’re doing everything we can to reduce waste and increase recycling to 50% or more, including building more recycling facilities.
“There is absolutely no incentive for us to produce more rubbish as it costs councils less to recycle materials than sending it to energy from waste facilities. But really, we need government and businesses to wake up to the link between unsustainable consumption, the waste it generates, and its real and devastating consequences for the climate emergency …
“We’re not expanding the existing facility but building a world-class replacement which will have even greater benefits for the environment … Our facility will stop the rubbish produced by 2 million people being trucked out to the countryside and buried in the ground.”