Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what comparative assessment he has made of available evidence on the efficiency of disposing food waste by (a) anaerobic digestion and (b) incineration.

Government supports Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and incineration of waste to produce Combined Heat and Power (CHP) as they are both efficient renewable technologies that offer significant carbon savings.

Both AD and incineration to produce CHP act as a form of waste management, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and so reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

We have not undertaken a comparative assessment as food waste is more suited to anaerobic digestion than incineration processes. It has a high moisture content which needs to be removed by heat before it will burn. Incineration technologies will tend to use other fuels such as municipal solid waste.