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Up In Smoke

Why Friends of the Earth Opposes Incineration

Introduction

The UK Government and local authorities are currently looking at burning more waste from households, shops and offices in incinerators. This would mean literally sending valuable resources up in smoke, as well as increasing pollution levels and losing the chance to increase employment.

In recent years, most UK waste has been landfilled (that is, buried in huge holes in the ground, for instance in old quarries.) In many areas, especially urban ones, there are few suitable landfill sites now still available, which means that local authorities are looking for alternatives. However, neither burning waste nor burying it is the answer - instead, we need to be recycling materials, and finding ways to waste less in the first place.

Most of these new proposed incinerators will be equipped to generate electricity from the heat produced by burning the waste. Some of them will also use some heat directly to heat buildings. Hence they are not being called 'incinerators', a word which people associate with pollution problems, but 'waste-to-energy' or 'energy-from-waste' facilities.

Superficially, the idea of burning waste to generate useful energy sounds environmentally sensible, and this is certainly how the new incinerators are being marketed by their operators. But Friends of the Earth opposes incineration of waste, including that with energy recovery. This is for three main reasons:

Incineration wastes valuable resources
Incineration pollutes
Incineration is bad for climate change

This briefing looks at these reasons in depth, at some of the financial and employment implications, and at Friends of the Earth's recommendations as to the way forward.

Incineration Wastes Valuable Resources

Waste or resource? We still live in a throwaway society. For example:

In the UK we throw away 20 million tonnes of waste every year, and that's just from our houses. Another 15 million tonnes is thrown out by offices and shops, and 70 million tonnes by industry. [Note 1]
In 1994 the UK packaging industry predicted that packaging waste would increase by 10% by the year 2000. [Note 2] Meanwhile the Netherlands is aiming to decrease its packaging waste to 10% lower than it was in 1986 by the year 2000. [Note 3]
It has been estimated that for every tonne of 'product' that we buy, ten tonnes of resources have been used to manufacture it. [Note 4]
Although we call the materials we throw away 'waste', this is a rash judgement - most of it either does not need to be produced in the first place, or could be reused or recycled as a useful resource.

It is very important that instead of wasting resources we use them more efficiently. Recent research published by Friends of the Earth shows that, for an environmentally sustainable and equitable future, we need to reduce our consumption of wood products (including paper) by 65% by the year 2010 [Note 5] and of non-renewable resources (like aluminium, steel and cement) by around 80% by 2050. [Note 6] This is not because resources are about to run out in the near future (although we potentially do have this problem with oil [Note 7]), but because of the effects of the current fast rate of consumption. For example:

The last 5% of old forest in Scandinavia is still being cut down to provide paper for us to use and the loggers have now moved into wildlife rich forests in Russia. These forests are the remaining home to a rich variety of plants and animals, including the flying squirrel, the brown bear, and the white-backed woodpecker. In Sweden alone, over 1700 forest- dwelling species are on the national threatened species list. [Note 8]
An aluminium mine in Ghana, which provides 1% of the world's aluminium, is powered by a hydroelectric project. An artificial lake half the size of Wales has been built to do this, displacing 80,000 people.
Pollution from the Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in New Guinea has contaminated local seafood, and is now considered to have destroyed the ecosystem on which 30,000 people depended for their livelihoods.
Plastic production accounts for 4% of oil consumption; oil is a non-renewable resource. It has been estimated that, at current projected consumption rates, and allowing for likely future oil discoveries, we will run out of oil by the middle of the next century. [Note 9]

Preventing these kinds of impacts means making things last twice as long and using half as much. Wasting much less and recycling much more is an important place to start.

Incineration and recycling - are they compatible? If we build incinerators, we are not only quite literally sending resources up in smoke, but also accepting that we do not need to reduce wastage. Because building an incinerator has such high capital costs, incinerator operators typically require contracts with local authorities to supply them with a minimum amount of waste to burn over a long time - 25 to 30 years. In some cases, if the local authority does not supply the full amount of waste required, it has to pay the incinerator operator to compensate for their profit shortfall. This assurance of return on investment is a logical requirement from the incinerator operators' point of view, but once incineration is established as an area's mode of waste management, it hampers waste reduction and recycling measures. The incentive on the local authority will be to ensure enough waste is produced, not to ensure that it's reduced.

An example of this has occurred in Cleveland. In mid-1995 Cleveland County Council (now reorganised into unitary authorities) signed a contract with a waste company to supply at least 180,000 tonnes for incineration and 80,000 tonnes for landfill each year. There was a 'shortfall' of 12,000 tonnes in the first year of the contract, and the authorities have thus incurred penalties of £147,000. The Associate Director of Environmental Services at Stockton Borough Council has said “essentially we are into waste maximisation”, and that they are constrained by the contracts from doing even a modest amount of recycling. [Note 10]

The incineration industry and the government argue that incineration and recycling can exist side by side. This is because their aspirations and targets for waste reduction and recycling levels are much less ambitious than is necessary. Some incinerators have facilities for removing glass and metals. But if paper and plastic waste were minimised and recycled as much as possible, in most areas there would not be enough left to make incineration financially worthwhile. If there is less waste a smaller incinerator is required. The costs of some pollution abatement equipment are the same irrespective of the plant to which they are fitted, and can be a high proportion of the costs of a small incinerator, [Note 11] potentially making small incinerators uneconomic.

Similarly, although it might appear that incinerators would not affect recycling of metals and glass, in practice there would be little incentive for separating out these materials, since they can go through the incineration process. [Note 12

Energy from recycling, not energy from waste By recycling instead of producing goods from raw materials, substantial amounts of energy are saved. Recycling cuts out the energy consumption associated with the extraction and initial processing of raw materials. In addition, the recycling process itself is often more energy efficient than production from raw materials. Energy can be obtained from incineration, but this is less than can be saved by recycling. The most recent European waste strategy assumes that in general recycling is preferable to incineration in energy terms. [Note 13]

A Canadian study found the following figures for energy saved by recycling materials as opposed to burning them. [Note 14] The savings still apply when the energy used to transport materials for recycling is taken into account - this energy is relatively insignificant.

Material	Energy saved
Paper	3 times
Plastic	5 times
Textile	6 times
Food and garden waste	None

Studies on individual materials yield similar results. In ten out of eleven analyses on paper, recycling has been found to result in lower total energy use than incineration (although possibly more carbon dioxide emission - but this is changing with the UK using different fuel mixes and would change further if recycling mills were built in urban areas and used more sustainable energy sources). [Notes 15,16] The most recent report looking at greenhouse gas emissions from different waste treatment options for different materials found that recyclingis preferable for paper, cardboard, plastics and metals. Interestingly it also suggested that landfill is better than incineration for plastics and some papers (for example newspaper) because the carbon is trapped in the landfill rather than released in the environment. [Note 17] And a study by the British Plastics Federation has found that recycling of plastic cups is preferable to incineration in energy terms. [Note 18]

Different studies in this field obtain different results. This can depend on the scope of the study. For example, a comparison of the amount of energy used at manufacturing versus recycling plants should include the energy needed to extract the raw materials to make the virgin products, but does not always do so.

Incineration Pollutes

Air pollution Incinerator chimneys emit organic substances such as dioxins, heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury, dust particles and acid gases such as sulphur dioxide and hydrochloric acid. These can have the following health effects:

Dioxins - according to a draft report from the US Environment Protection Agency, dioxins may be associated with cancer, hormonal effects such as endometriosis in women and reduced sperm counts in men, and reduced immune system capacity. They may also affect foetal development. [Note 19]
Heavy metals - cadmium may cause lung and kidney disease, and mercury can affect the nervous system.
Dust particles - these exacerbate lung diseases such as asthma or chronic bronchitis, and heart disease.
Acid gases - these also exacerbate lung disease.

The permissible limits for emission of these substances (apart from dioxins) have been tightened by a European law which came into force on 1 December 1996. The European law does not specifically set limits for dioxins but a limit for these has been set by the UK Environment Agency. This means that all working incinerators in the UK will operate to standards more stringent than previously. New European legislation will tighten the standards further, and other countries are already operating to higher standards. For example, standards for dioxin emissions in the Netherlands are ten times more stringent than the new UK standards. [Note 20] A recent report for the European Commission, which was prepared to help them consider how tough the new standards should be, suggested that for every tonne of municipal waste burnt, between £21 and £126 worth of environmental and health damage is caused (depending on the location of the incinerator). [Note 21

For some of the pollutants, (such as dioxin and cadmium), the overall amount of the pollutant in the area, some of which will come from the incinerator and some from other sources, is not taken into account when the incinerator emission limits are set. Because of this it is often not possible to tell whether the incinerator emissions will lead to unacceptable exposure or not. Moreover, for pollutants where the overall impact is allowed for (such as with particles and lead) the standards do not take into account the fact that two or more pollutants might act in combination to produce a greater effect than they would singly.

Monitoring for dioxins (and also for heavy metals), is done at intervals - for example, twice a year. [Note 22] The amount of each pollutant will vary depending on the particular composition of the material going into the incinerator at any given time and the temperature of the incinerator. To get the most favourable results it is likely that the operators will ensure that ideal conditions are present at the times of the tests. This may not always be the case at other times the incinerator is operating.

Incinerator ash One of the main arguments put forward for incineration is that it saves on landfill space - but a significant amount of ash is produced. When waste is landfilled it is compacted. According to the Government's own waste strategy, the ash produced by incineration occupies 40%-50% of the space that compacted unburnt waste would. [Note 23] Therefore, whilst it is often said that the ash occupies only 10% of the volume of unburnt waste, this figure is misleading as it applies to uncompacted waste.

The ash is toxic; the toxins include heavy metals and dioxins. This particularly applies to ash which is 'caught' by pollution abatement equipment and prevented from going up the chimney, known as 'fly ash'. However, the main volume of the ash - 'bottom ash' - also contains some toxins. Most of it goes to landfill, and this means that the pollutants may eventually leak into groundwater, from where it is virtually impossible to clean them up. Moreover, the heavy metals are present in a form where they are more liable to leach if they are in ash than if they are in unburnt waste. [Note 24]

Incineration companies are now looking for ways to use bottom ash for construction purposes. Even if acceptable uses could be developed, it does not solve the problem of what to do with the toxic fly ash.

Local Effects of Incinerators

An incinerator has impacts other than local pollution on the community where it is sited. Traffic congestion and noise arise from the lorries transporting waste to, and ash away from, the incinerator. The incinerator itself is unsightly. And property values and local businesses (such as food processing, which needs to maintain confidence that its products are not contaminated) may be adversely affected.

Dioxins Dioxins are a by-product of burning chlorine-containing materials, such as PVC plastic. Dioxins have a particular set of properties which make them worthy of special consideration:

They are extremely toxic - that is, their effects are seen at very low doses
They are persistent - that is, they take a very long time to break down, either in the body or in the environment
They are bioaccumulative - that is, they build up in people's bodies, and in the food chain, over time

There has been considerable debate over just how much risk to health they pose. However, everyone is now unavoidably carrying a certain amount of dioxin in their bodies as a consequence of living in the industrialised world. Worryingly, some of the health effects described earlier in the briefing are seen in people with levels of dioxin not much higher than the amount many people have anyway. [Note 25] This does not prove that the dioxin is definitely causing the health effects. But it should not be necessary to wait for definite proof - the 'precautionary principle' should be applied and no more avoidable dioxin should be added to the environment.

The UK Government considers that there is very little health risk from current levels of dioxins. This belief is based on a particular 'tolerable daily intake' (TDI) that it considers safe, which is also the one used by the World Health Organisation. However, this TDI is based on assumptions which, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, do not necessarily stand up. For example, the safe intake is calculated is calculated on the basis of experiments on rats, and does not make enough allowance for the fact that dioxin breaks down in rats' bodies much more quickly than in humans. [Note 26]

The UK's TDI is about 100 times less stringent than the US Environment Protection Agency considers to be safe for the non-cancer health risks (such as reduced fertility, and endometriosis), and about a thousand times less stringent than they calculate to give a cancer risk of one in a million (their usual benchmark). [Note 27]

Incinerator Costs

It is not surprising that, at present, incineration appears to be a financially attractive option for waste authorities which are hard pressed for landfill space because at present, incineration appears to be a cheaper option than recycling. However, incinerators could end up being expensive white elephants for four reasons:

As emissions standards continue to improve, costs will increase. For example, there is a new European draft waste incineration Directive.28 A study has estimated that retrofitting plants which already comply with the current law to comply with the new proposed law may be around £8 per tonne of waste. [Note 29]
Incinerator operators may in the future find themselves liable for large litigation claims from local residents whose health has been damaged by the emissions.
The landfill tax may be increased, and to be extended to incineration, so that the environmental costs of these waste disposal options are more fully reflected in the price paid for them.
At present, many incinerators are subsidised by the Government through the Non-Fossil-Fuel- Obligation. This subsidy is to encourage renewable sources of energy. We believe that it should not be used to subsidise incineration (which burns fossil fuels in the form of plastics). If it were to be withdrawn, incineration would be much less financially attractive.

Investment in recycling, on the other hand, will pay off more and more as recycling infrastructures and markets for recycled materials develop. It also creates far more jobs than either landfill or incineration - see below.

But regardless of the current financial situation, local authorities do not have to go for the cheapest option for waste disposal - the Department of the Environment says “Under the Environment Protection Act 1990, local authorities, in their role as waste disposal authorities, are not required to accept the lowest tender for their contracts where an alternative offers environmental benefits.” [Note 30]

Waste management and employment Once they have been built, incinerators create few jobs compared with recycling. A New York study found thefollowing: [Note 31]

Jobs per one million tons of waste processed
Type of waste disposal	Number of Jobs
Landfill	40 - 60
Incineration	100 - 290
Composting	200 - 300
Recycling	400 - 590

The British Newsprint Manufacturers Association found that recycling of newspapers would create three times as many jobs as incinerating them. In addition, a higher proportion of the jobs created by incineration were associated with building the incinerator, so they were not permanent jobs. [Note 32]

A strategy drawn up for London suggested that increasing recycling in London to around 50% by 2005 would create around 15,000 jobs. [Note 33]

What Do We Want to See?

First, there are many ways of using materials far more efficiently than we do at present. And it is not just Friends of the Earth calling for this. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has estimated that a ten fold increase in efficiency of material throughput is necessary. [Note 34] For example, we need to design products to carry out the same functions using fewer materials, and to be durable, repairable and have reusable parts. We need to make much greater use of recycled materials. We need to replace products with services (for example, nappy washing services and tool hire), and we need to start asking ourselves how much we really need. All of this would mean less in the dustbin.

Secondly, the waste we do produce needs to be recycled to a far greater extent than happens at present. It has been estimated that around 80% of household dustbin waste is recyclable or compostable; [Note 35] this estimate allows for practical and economic factors. Recycling saves materials and the waste created by obtaining raw materials, saves energy, and most recycling processes are less polluting than raw materials processes. [Note 36]

In parts of the USA, Canada, Japan and Germany recycling levels of between 50-75% have already been achieved. [Note 37] It can be done here too. For example, the city of Bath has already reached the Government's target of recycling 25% of household waste, and Leicester City has recently set a target of recycling 40% of household waste by 2000. The London Borough of Sutton is recycling 19%, and aiming for 50% by 2001.

Soiled paper (eg that which has been in contact with food, or paper that has been recycled the maximum number of times and is no longer good enough quality for further recycling), can be composted or anaerobically digested. These processes also deal with food and garden waste. They can produce a useful product (compost or soil conditioner) and are more flexible (in terms of plant size) and less polluting than incineration.

Local authorities have a very important role to play in sustainable waste management. We recommend they do the following:

Reject incineration as a backward-looking option, and instead expand recycling facilities, preferably by means of comprehensive kerbside collection, and look to anaerobic digestion and composting
Provide public education on minimising waste and recycling more
Support waste exchanges, and reuse schemes such as furniture repair
Minimise internal waste from the Authority, and specify that materials purchased by the Authority should be recycled

Conclusion

Incineration is a backward-looking technology - it allows us to continue with our throwaway habits, instead of looking to the future when we will be conserving resources much more carefully than we do now. It also adds to pollution of both air and land, and may turn out to be very expensive.

Building incinerators now commits us to this wasteful way of managing resources for several decades hence.

Don't let the future go up in smoke!