The Environmental Services Association (ESA) has insisted that creating energy from waste (EfW) is “complementary” to recycling efforts after an investigation uncovered the carbon impact of burning rubbish.
The trade body said the “majority” of the councils recovering the most material also created power from refuse.
It spoke out after BBC research revealed that producing energy from waste was almost as carbon intensive as burning coal, which has now been phased out in the UK.
The corporation also found that councils have more than £30bn of contracts with waste operators involving incinerators, many requiring the local authority to supply a minimum level of waste to these plants.
But the ESA refuted claims that local authorities were locked into contracts that incentivised them to suppress recycling, saying this notion was “simply misplaced”.
“The ability of EfW and recycling to successfully co-exist alongside each other is also evidenced by the fact that the majority of the 10 councils with the highest recycling rates also make use of EfW to treat the leftover waste,” added the body in a statement.
“EfW is complementary to efforts to recycle and every household in the UK has access to kerbside recycling services provided by their local authority. Recycling sorting and collection activity always takes place upstream of treating waste through EfW – which points to upstream failures in recycling.”
A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to cutting waste and moving to a circular economy so that we re-use, reduce and recycle more resources and help meet our emissions targets. We are considering the role waste incineration will play as we decarbonise and grow the economy.”
