Waste

incinerator

This page contains resources to help you campaign for sustainable waste management and against incineration in your local area.

To deal with our waste sustainably, we need to focus on prevention, reuse, recycling and the generation of 100% renewable energy via anaerobic digestion.

This will maximise our resource efficiency and minimise our climate impacts.

Councils can help to achieve this by:

collecting recycling separately at the kerbside
collecting food waste separately, for composting or anaerobic digestion
providing many recycling-focussed household waste recycling centres
reusing furniture and appliances from bulky collection schemes.

The residual waste left over can then be processed using Material Recycling Facility (MRF) technology to separate out recyclables, including plastics, before and after composting the residual:

to remove the bulk of the biological activity (in case the output is landfilled)
to release further recyclables
to create a low-grade compost output.

This is a form of mechanical biological treatment.

For more information on best practice solutions, see the briefings below, particularly Sorting residual waste and the write up of our Taking out the Rubbish conference.

Friends of the Earth opposes incineration because it:

Causes climate change, while generating energy inefficiently.
Destroys valuable materials that could be recycled into new products. Recycling saves far more energy than is created by burning waste as it avoids having to make products from virgin materials.
Doesn't provide an incentive for reducing waste, as incinerators need a minimum amount of rubbish to operate efficiently. Contracts for incinerators are long, requiring waste for 20 years.

For more details, see the briefings below.

If you are concerned about a local incinerator plan, check if your local Friends of the Earth group is already involved in a campaign against it. You can find your nearest group here.

UKWIN (UK Without Incineration) is a network of anti-incineration groups. You can see if there is a campaign group in your area on UK WIN's website, and there's also an interactive map of current and proposed incinerators.

Waste briefings
Reports
Understand the planning system
Campaign guides
Posters
Case studies
Links

Waste briefings

Up in smoke
(PDF† 190K) September 2007
This briefing looks at the reasons why Friends of the Earth opposes incineration, and covers the waste of natural resources, the effect on recycling and climate change and the pollution from air emissions and toxic ash.

Dirty truths: incineration and climate change
(PDF† 755K) May 2006
This briefing investigates the climate impacts of energy from waste and residual waste treatment and shows that incinerators that produce electricity emit more greenhouse than gas fired power stations.

Pyrolysis gasification and plasma
(PDF † 148K) September 2009
Pyrolysis, gasification and plasma technologies are thermal processes that use high temperatures to break down waste - this briefing explains how they work and what their benefits and disadvantages are.

Long waste contracts
(PDF† 283KB) August 2009
The key risks of signing up to a long waste contract, and 10 key questions to ask if your council is considering doing so.

Autoclaving
(PDF† 233K) September 2008
Autoclaving involves the high-pressure sterilisation of waste by steam, and is increasingly being proposed as a treatment for municipal waste.

Mechanical and biological treatment (MBT)
(PDF† 178K) September 2008
This briefing examines the MBT process and explains the potential benefits and disadvantages of using this technology.

Recycling: why it's important and how to do it
(PDF† 283K) September 2008
This briefing explains the benefits of recycling and the best practice which councils should implement to improve doorstep collection schemes and maximise recycling rates.

Recycling collections - source separated or commingled?
(PDF† 177K) September 2008
This briefing outlines the advantages of separating recyclable materials at the kerbside in doorstep collection schemes.

Private finance initiative (PFI) funding for waste infrastructure
(PDF† 324K) August 2008
This briefing explains how the PFI process is applied to big waste projects, the problems and opportunities associated with waste PFIs, and some possible ways to get involved with the process to achieve better outcomes.

Sorting residual waste
(PDF† 1659K) June 2008
A guide for councils to save money and help the environment by cutting back on residual waste, via increased recycling and reuse.

Anaerobic digestion
(PDF † 101K) September 2007
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a treatment that composts biodegradable waste in the absence of oxygen, producing a biogas that can be used to generate 100% renewable electricity and heat.

Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS)
(PDF† 170K) September 2007
This briefing outlines how LATS works and the best way for councils to meet these targets without incineration.

Food waste collections
(PDF† 165K) September 2007
Separate food waste collections from households offer the biggest potential for improving recycling rates, meeting targets for reducing how much we landfill and reducing the pressure for new incinerators.

There is also a food waste action guide to lobby your council to introduce food waste collections.

Up in smoke leaflet
(PDF† - 262K) October 2007
This colour leaflet provides an introduction to why Friends of the Earth opposes incineration of mixed municipal waste and offers solutions for dealing with our rubbish. For paper copies visit our online shop's free resources section.

Reports

Gone to waste: the valuable resources that European countries bury and burn
(PDF† 533K) October 2009
This report looks at the amount of recyclable materials we landfill and incinerate in the UK, and the EU. It reveals that value of those materials and the potential climate benefits of recycling them.

Overconsumption? Our use of the world's natural resources
(PDF† 4.6M) September 2009
This report investigates Europe's use of the world's natural resources, including their extraction, trade and consumption, and considers how we can make our resource use more sustainable.

How to measure Europe's Resource Use
(PDF† 851K) June 2009
This report proposes a set of indicators for measuring Europe's resource use.

Taking out the Rubbish conference
(PDF† 387K) April 2009
This is a write up of the talks and Q&A sessions from a conference on maximising recycling and phasing out residual waste.

Understand the planning system

Understanding the planning system is essential to running an anti-incinerator campaign - it's the best way to get your voice heard and have an influence on the decisions being made. Many useful resources to help you get involved in the right way and at the right stage of planning applications can be found on the here. Although the system may seem arcane and intimidating, don't be put off by the complexity.

Be aware that is important to respond to planning applications within 21 days and to support your letter of objection with relevant planning policies.

Waste development frameworks
(PDF† 228K) September 2009
This guide explains how best to engage with the structure of the waste planning framework and summarises of Friends of the Earth's waste local planning policy.

This guide is part of the Community Rights Resource Pack, an accessible yet comprehensive set of campaigner guides written to help local people and communities get their voice heard in decisions which affect them.

PPS10: Planning for Sustainable Waste Management
(PDF† 53K) November 2005
This briefing note summarises the key differences between Planning Policy Statement 10 and previous planning guidance on waste and explains how to use PPS10 to influence what is happening on waste in your area.

Campaign guides

NB - The planning sections of the following guides have been superceded by the planning resources here.

The PDF versions provided here are meant for online reading and to print out relevant pages. We do not recommend to print off the entire documents. Please be aware that the file sizes are quite large and might take a while to download.

How to win: campaign against incinerators
(PDF† 442K) September 2000
An introductory guide, updating and summarising information found in the Incineration Campaign Guide. You can also buy a paper copy of this guide.

Incineration campaign guide
(PDF† 675K) December 1997
A comprehensive guide for campaigning against incineration. The 'How to Win: Campaign against incinerators' guide above updates and summarises information from this guide.

Posters

Yes to recycling, no to incineration poster (PDF)
Bin image (PDF)

Case studies

We've put together some case studies of local campaigns against incinerators: