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

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to DEFRA’s press release ‘Government to crack down on waste incinerators with stricter standards for new builds’ published on 30 December 2024 which stated that “the country will only need to manage 17.6 million tonnes of non-recyclable waste by 2042”, what estimate they have made of the weight of residual waste from (1) household and (2) other sources to arrive at that figure.

There is a statutory target to ensure that the total mass of residual waste (excluding major mineral wastes) in England does not exceed 287kg per person in 2042. This is roughly equivalent to reducing residual waste arisings on a kg per person basis by 50% by 2042 from 2019 levels. This includes residual waste from both municipal (household and ‘household-like’) and non-municipal sources. It excludes major mineral wastes, the predominant and largely inert waste typically arising from construction and demolition sources, such as soils, concrete, ceramics and dredging spoils.

The figure of 17.6 million tonnes of residual waste arisings in 2042, in the context of meeting the 2042 target, is calculated by taking the 287kg figure and multiplying this by the Office for National Statistics population projection for 2042. We do not have estimates of the proportion or weight of this that will be made up of municipal waste and the proportion or weight that will be made up of non-municipal waste.