‘Greenwashing’ incinerator firms are burying evidence that burning household waste for energy can be more polluting than coal-fired power plants, openDemocracy can reveal.
Waste companies promote incinerators as generators of ‘renewable’ or ‘low-carbon’ energy but evidence from their own monitors shows that the UK’s 57 incinerators emitted more than seven million tonnes of fossil-based carbon dioxide last year, largely from burning plastic.
More than half of incinerated plastic is either “readily recyclable” or “potentially recyclable”, according to analysis of waste.
Some companies deceive children and teachers by supplying teaching material and hosting school trips in which misleading environmental claims are made about incineration.
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Last year, the Environment Agency asked companies to start including CO2 information based on continuous monitoring in their annual performance reports.
Analysis of this data by openDemocracy and UK Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) has found that the average UK incinerator produces more than twice as much CO2 per unit of electricity as gas-fired power plants, and some have a higher carbon intensity than coal plants.
The amount of waste incinerated in the UK has more than doubled in less than a decade, up from 6.7 million tonnes in 2014 to 15.3 million tonnes last year. Recycling has flatlined over the same period, with the amount of incinerated household waste in England exceeding the amount recycled since 2019.
In part, this is because incineration is often the cheapest option for waste disposal. It is exempt from both the tax paid for landfill (£102 per tonne) and the UK emissions trading scheme (ETS), meaning waste companies do not have to pay for their pollution.
The waste management industry is building another 18 incinerators, with capacity to burn 5.7 million tonnes of waste, despite its commitment to reach net zero by 2040.
Shlomo Dowen, the national coordinator of UKWIN, said: “The huge environmental harm caused by incineration is completely unnecessary. We should all be working together to do away with incineration, and this starts by calling out the greenwash whenever we see it.”
Piers Forster, a professor of physical climate change and member of the independent Climate Change Committee, told openDemocracy that carbon emissions from incineration were already higher than the government had predicted in 2021 in its strategy for meeting net-zero emissions by 2050.
He called on incinerator operators “to be more honest and transparent about the carbon intensity of their operations”, and said they should be paying for their pollution, either via the ETS or another mechanism.
Misleading schoolchildren
A number of the UK’s incinerators have been accused of “peddling propaganda” to children and teachers on school trips.
The energy from Allington incinerator in Kent is more carbon intensive than coal plants and three times as carbon intensive as gas plants, according to analysis of its annual performance report submitted to the Environment Agency.
It emitted 1,195 grams of fossil CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour of electricity (g/kWh) exported to the grid last year, compared to coal plants’ 960g/kWh and gas plants’ 360g/kWh.
But FCC, Allington’s owner, fails to mention its very high carbon intensity in publicity material about the incinerator. Instead, it promotes the plant as a source of “renewable energy” – making that same claim to schoolchildren on educational tours.
Another waste firm, Veolia, supplies schools with teaching material that includes a video which describes its Staffordshire incinerator as a “completely green plant”.
In its notes for schools, Veolia, which operates 10 incinerators across the UK, says teachers should tell pupils that incinerators, which it calls energy recovery facilities (ERFs), are “an important source of renewable, sustainable energy”.
It fails to mention that its Staffordshire plant last year had a fossil carbon intensity almost as high as coal plants, at 948g/kWh.
A Veolia spokesperson said: “At no point has Veolia indicated that 100% of its ERF-derived energy is renewable. All information (not just teaching) materials about our ERF activity are consistent with that.”