(Bath) (LD):...For too long,
waste incineration has been labelled as energy from
wasteand seen as part of the circular economy and a green
way of disposing of our municipal waste. Councils have been
struggling with their budgets, and they look into anything that
saves money. Bath and North East Somerset Council has just agreed a
big contract for a waste incinerator. I have raised concerns about
that, and I am still arguing with the council about whether it is
actually a green solution. We have been looking at ways of
diverting waste from landfill because it creates methane, a potent
greenhouse gas, but burning waste creates very high carbon
emissions, too. That must get into the public domain so that people
who make decisions know what they are doing.
I believe that we should not send waste to incinerators. Every
tonne of municipal waste that is incinerated releases between 0.7
tonnes and 1.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Recovering
energy from waste produces more carbon emissions
than burning gas. As was mentioned, incinerators need a blend of
waste materials, including plastics, to have the calorific value
to create enough heat. Incineration is just a cheaper option than
landfill for getting rid of municipal waste. The result is that
we become a lot less active in avoiding, reducing and recycling.
The order of the waste hierarchy is: avoid, reuse, recycle,
incineration and then landfill. Incineration is only one step
above the landfill solution.
The more incineration plants are built in this country, the less
likely we are to achieve our target, because local authorities
need to fill incinerators with waste for them to function. I have
been a councillor and tried to ensure that people recycle more.
It costs a lot of human resources to go around and ensure that
households—particularly hard-to-reach households—recycle in a
particular way, and it costs councils money. It is no wonder that
cash-strapped local authorities are looking at cheaper options,
but incineration is not the right option. The real way to reduce
carbon emissions is to recycle more or, indeed, to find
compostable materials. I had a meeting yesterday with an
interesting company that is looking into compostable plastics,
but those are not the plastics that an incinerator needs. We need
to look at actual green solutions, not at incineration.
I recognise that 10 years ago, energy from waste
seemed like a way to get to a low-carbon economy. When our target
was to reduce our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, it was an
option, but everything has changed since the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change report. We now know that we have to get
to net zero by 2050. The last 20% of emissions are crucial, and
they are very difficult to get out of the atmosphere. For that
reason, low-carbon solutions are no longer an option. We have no
time to invest in low-carbon technologies; we need to put all our
efforts into net zero solutions. I believe that incentives and
disincentives are the way forward. I also support the idea of an
incineration tax. The landfill tax has made a massive difference
in diverting waste from landfill; an incineration tax would
ensure that we do not just divert all our waste to
incinerators.
(Glenrothes) (SNP): I
congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West
(Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate and on the way she
introduced it, and I congratulate everybody else who has spoken,
because there has been a remarkable degree of unanimity. It seems
to me that there is a major problem here: if it is decided by the
Government that energy from waste is an
essential part of the United Kingdom’s energy production to meet
the country’s needs, where are we going to build those
facilities? If all the facilities that people are complaining
about today were scrapped and planning applications were put in
in 10 other constituencies around the UK, we would have 10 other
MPs complaining, backed by 10 other sets of councils, and so
on...
...To my mind, those provisions do not go far enough. We
should look to move quickly to a point where our energy supply
does not rely on energy from waste at all,
because it does not appear to me as though there is any way to
indiscriminately burn waste material without creating an
unacceptable health hazard to those who live close by. As has
been pointed out, children and those who are more active tend to
be the ones who suffer. I thought the hon. Member for
Loughborough () spoke very well about the almost
ridiculous fact that for people living near an incinerator,
exercise might actually make them more ill, rather than helping
them to get healthy...
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs ():...The Government are clear
that energy from waste should
not compete with greater waste prevention, reuse or recycling.
Currently, England has enough operational
energy-from-waste capacity to treat about 38% of
residual municipal waste, including a proportion of commercial
and industrial waste. The majority of the 40 or so existing
plants use conventional incineration with energy recovery, as
that is tried and tested, but other technologies, such as
pyrolysis and gasification, could achieve greater efficiencies,
reducing environmental impact and delivering outputs beyond
electricity generation. This is a changing space, and science is
obviously benefiting the sector. Nevertheless, for the
foreseeable future, conventional energy from waste will
continue to have an important role in diverting waste from
landfill, and it is the best option for most waste that cannot be
reused or recycled.
