A national campaign is demanding government action to prevent the realisation of 50 new incinerators in England, in addition to 49 operational plants.
These incinerators have been given government planning approval and are due to become operational by 2030.
'Stop-the-Burn' believes more incinerators are unnecessary, set back efforts to reduce and recycle waste and will be disasterous for our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
These incinerators have been given government planning approval and are due to become operational by 2030.
'Stop-the-Burn' believes more incinerators are unnecessary, set back efforts to reduce and recycle waste and will be disasterous for our efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
If built, the 50 new plants would cause incineration CO2 emissions to triple, from 5.5 to 15 million tonnes. As a result, total waste sector emissions would increase to 28 million tonnes by 2035, instead of dropping below 16 million tonnes, as required by the Climate Change Committee’s net-zero pathway for the sector. |
While in England, the government is accelerating incineration capacity, other countries are setting far greener targets.
Wales appears to be leading the way.
It created a 2011 Blue Print for waste reduction and has capped the size of incinerators at 10mega watts (the Northwich one could be 90 mega watts) |
'We want to achieve our aim of Wales being a zero waste nation by 2050.
This means that any discarded materials are recycled and
re-circulated within the Welsh economy, with no loss of materials from the system—effectively a 100% recycling rate from all sectors.’— Welsh Government
What's happening in other countries?
Waste combustion is particularly popular in countries such as Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands, where land is a scarce resource. Denmark and Sweden have been leaders by using the energy generated from incineration for more than a century, in localised combined heat and power facilities supporting district heating schemes. In 2005, waste incineration produced 4.8% of the electricity consumption and 13.7% of the total domestic heat consumption in Denmark. A number of other European countries rely heavily on incineration for handling municipal waste, in particular Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, and France |
Denmark has 23 incinerators capable of burning 3.8 million tons of waste a year.
But the country needs to source more and more trash from abroad. It imported nearly 1 million tons in 2018, mainly from the U.K. and Germany. That doesn't square with Copenhagen's climate goals; Denmark wants to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 70 percent below 1990 levels in the next decade under a climate law adopted last year. One of their newest incinerators is nicknamed the 'hill',given its size and rooftop ski park. 4/10/19 BBC - the Amagar Bakke (hill) incinerator - is there enough waste for it? |
Incinerators create electricity, creating PROFITS FOR PRIVATE OWNERS.
Different countries invest in incinerators, not only in their own countries, but abroad too. The Northwich LSEP incinerator is being 60% funded by a Danish pension fund 'Ci Partners'- their share holders will receive any profits created by our incinerator. Click here to see how they invest: CI III. |
“Today, we import waste with a high content of plastic in order to [use the excess] capacity at the incineration plants, with increasing CO2 emission as a result” — Dan Jørgensen, Denmark's climate minister