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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the Waste Hierachy to place Sustainable Aviation Fuel produced by waste-to-liquid above that produced by energy-from-waste.

The waste hierarchy sets out a priority order in which waste should be managed (prevention, preparing for reuse, recycling, recovery, disposal). The process of converting waste (both biogenic and fossil fractions) into fuels/energy is a recovery operation for the purposes of the waste hierarchy. This is because once combusted, material is lost from the circular economy.

Whilst we have no plans to change the waste hierarchy, Defra’s position is that we welcome innovative and new measures to manage residual waste and that there is nothing to stop the production of fuel from residual waste if this is determined, by local authorities or other waste producers, to be the best overall environmental outcome for such waste.