Waste Incinerators

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered waste incinerators.

I declare my interest as a Derby city councillor of almost 17 years and a former leader of the council. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell.

I pay tribute to the amazing residents of Sinfin, Osmaston and Normanton; I have campaigned with them against an incinerator in our community for the past 16 years. I promised them that I would take this fight to Parliament, and that is exactly what I plan to do today.

Many present will be all too familiar with stories like that of Sinfin—and worse. It is a story of broken promises and good money thrown after bad. At its heart is a community that has suffered the consequences of poor planning, poor management, poor decision making, and a lack of transparency and scrutiny. Residents have lived in continuous anxiety and fear that the incineration plant in Sinfin will become operational. They have endured a protracted planning process, with the incinerator eventually being approved only on a technicality following a High Court ruling. They are rightly concerned about the impact that the incinerator would have on their health, local environment and quality of life.

Unfortunately, so much of the story is not unique to Sinfin or Derby. Incinerators loom large over so many communities across the UK, so we are here to say that incinerators do not have a place near schools, people’s homes, allotments, elderly residents, or spaces where our children grow up and play. We are here to say that enough is enough. Incinerators must be kept to a minimum, especially when they impact local communities.

I recognise that waste must be disposed of responsibly, and we have to accept that some incinerators will be needed to achieve that, but they must be safe, be appropriately located, use proven technology and be kept to a minimum. We do not need local plants that impact the lives of local people in local areas. For the sake of our communities and environment, we must also take bold steps towards increased recycling rates and a circular economy. When we talk about waste disposal, we are also talking about the future that we want to create for our children and grandchildren.

It is important to highlight what it is like to live next to an incinerator. Nobody wants to live next to noise pollution from a constant stream of heavy goods vehicles, deal with a fly infestation because waste is being left on site, or worry about their health and their children’s health because their next door neighbour is an incinerator that is leaking sulphuric acid and damaging air quality. All those are lived experiences from the plant in Sinfin, which has never operated for a single day, and which failed during commissioning.

It is not just the experiences of impacted residents—the statistics on incinerators speak for themselves, loud and clear. BBC analysis has found that burning household waste in incinerators to make electricity is now the dirtiest way that the UK generates power.

[Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend and neighbour has spent many years fighting on behalf of residents on this issue, and I thank him for that. Does he agree that, after 16 long years and with no working incinerator, it is time to say that enough is enough and to explore cleaner, safer alternatives for waste disposal in Derby, particularly given that producing energy from waste is as bad for the environment as burning coal?

[Baggy Shanker]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that timely intervention. She is absolutely right. Incinerators are right at the bottom of the waste hierarchy, and recyclable material in incinerators is being burnt because it has a higher calorific value. It is time to say that enough is enough. Nearly half the rubbish produced by UK homes is now being incinerated. While we continue to burn waste, recycling rates have stalled over the past 14 years. The message is clear: too many incinerators are not working for our environment or for our communities.

There could not be a better example of a failed incinerator than that in Sinfin, where poor decision making, exaggerated business cases and hidden truths have landed our community and local authority finances in an absolute mess. This incinerator has been nothing short of a nightmare from the start, and unfortunately there is no finish yet. After a drawn-out planning process, years of opposition from residents and the staggering sum of nearly £150 million of council tax payers’ money going down the drain, the incinerator still has never operated and, in my view, will never operate. Let us imagine what the community in Derby could have done with £150 million invested in local projects, delivering real outcomes for our community.

Instead, the incinerator has never processed operational waste and has created minimal employment. It gives me no pleasure today to say, “We told you so,” because at every opportunity the community has spoken out against the incinerator, and has been ignored by big business, council officials and decision makers. Clear warning signs were not heeded, at the expense of residents.

As a joint project between Derby city council and Derbyshire county council, the incinerator was intended to be a gasification plant. Gasification is a largely unproven technology with a history of failures and technical challenges, and unfortunately Sinfin has been no different. The facility has consistently failed commissioning tests, and we now need to say, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) just did, that enough is enough. The incinerator does not have a place in Sinfin and we do not want it there.

The councils have now selected three potential partners to try again to operate the plant, but huge question marks over the project’s viability remain. I urge all involved to do the right thing by our local community and say of this incinerator that enough is enough, because over the past 16 years it is the people of Sinfin and Osmaston who have suffered the consequences of its shocking mismanagement. Understandably, they have lost trust in politicians and council officials because while residents have been ignored, consultants have made millions on this project.

During attempts to commission the plant, residents have suffered vile smells, despite a promise from operators and officers that there would be no smell off site. In fact, they were told that it was impossible for the plant to emit odours. One resident said:

“Where we are, the stench is really strong and smells like rotting food. We have been getting loads of flies around here as well. The summer has been horrendous, we have had to keep our windows closed in the hot weather because when we open them it is just awful.”

Sitting with the windows shut throughout the summer is no way to live. I am absolutely confident—I wish I was not—that other hon. Members present will share similar stories from their constituents. Whether the concerns relate to health, noise, pollution or the environment, incinerators are not working for too many of our communities. But we know that waste needs to be disposed of responsibly, so where does that leave us?

As the Climate Change Committee states, we need a step change towards a circular economy. That means transitioning away from incinerators and urgently increasing recycling rates, which have been shockingly low in recent years. Data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that higher rates of incineration mean lower rates of recycling. That is known in the industry as “deliver or pay”, where clauses in council contracts demand that a minimum amount of waste be sent to incinerators for burning. We are facing a climate crisis, and that is not good enough. We do not have time to lose getting it wrong on waste disposal methods that harm our communities and planet.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s action to crack down on waste incinerators by introducing stricter standards for new builds, which include tougher local and environmental conditions. It is absolutely right that projects will be required to maximise efficiency and support the delivery of economic growth, net zero and the move to a circular economy. But for Sinfin residents, sadly, the measures are too late. Residents are stuck with an incinerator that does not and will not work. They can be certain of only one thing: every attempt to get the incinerator working means more of their hard-earned taxpayer money thrown down the drain on this white elephant.

I urge the Minister to instruct senior officials in her Department to investigate this mess and to meet me to discuss better protecting communities such as Sinfin, whose residents are stuck living a prolonged nightmare with the incinerator looming over their lives. We have to say that enough is enough, so that councils do not throw good money after bad at the expense of local residents. Ultimately, we need to turbocharge our transition to a circular economy, moving away from incineration, which is the dirtiest way to generate power.