Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the environmental impact of waste to energy facilities compared to general landfill.

Defra published “Energy recovery for residual waste, a carbon based modelling approach” in 2014, which set out to identify the critical factors that affect the environmental case for energy from waste (EfW) in comparison to landfill from a carbon perspective, and the sensitivity of that case to those factors. The critical factors include the efficiency of the EfW plant; the volume and efficiency of landfill gas collection; the carbon intensity of electricity production offset by EfW and the proportions of the biogenic and fossil-derived content of residual waste. The study notes that, reducing the proportion of fossil-derived materials such as plastics going to EfW through actions such as increased recycling can improve its environmental performance relative to landfill in terms of carbon.

The study also found that, under the current waste composition, landfill would only be environmentally preferable to EfW if the EfW plant had a net electrical efficiency of 11.7%.

As set out in Defra’s 2013 paper on incineration of municipal solid waste, the typical net electrical efficiency of an incinerator only recovering electricity is 27%, further increasing with the utilisation of heat. The paper can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/incineration-of-municipal-solid-waste

The Government remains of the view that EfW is generally better than landfill in terms of environmental impact. We are in the process of developing a new Resources and Waste Strategy, which will aim to ensure we have the right mix of infrastructure for waste that maximises its value as a resource and minimises its environmental impact.

The “Energy recovery for residual waste, a carbon based modelling approach” can be found here: http://randd.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=None&Completed=0&ProjectID=19019