Policy News

Thursday 15 October 2009

The secretary of state for the environment, Hilary Benn, said that energy recovery would have a major part to play in England's attempt to become a zero waste nation

Energy from waste will play a central role in the path towards Britain becoming a 'zero waste' nation, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn claimed on Tuesday (October 13).

Speaking at a summit of local authorities and the waste industry, Mr Benn said that councils and the waste sector should be using new technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD), which re-uses farm and food waste to generate energy.

He was speaking as the government announced a raft of targets and measures for both household and commercial and industrial waste, one of which was that in 10 years' time 75% of household waste would either be recycled or used for energy.

Mr Benn said: "We need to rethink how we view and treat waste in the UK. Using new technologies will help us to re-use things, for example anaerobic digestion that creates energy from food and farm waste."

And, at the same event, secretary of state for Communities and Local Government John Denham continued: "If we continue to send recyclable or compostable waste to landfill we are missing a major opportunity to generate heat and energy.

"I have recently set out ambitions for councils to play a bigger role in tackling climate change and thinking more creatively about waste is just one way to unlock that potential," he added.

The government wants to significantly reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill or incinerated without recovering energy, saying that, where possible, energy should be recovered from materials that cannot be reused or recycled, and that disposal to landfill should only be necessary for small amounts of residual material.

Figures released on Tuesday in a 2008/09 progress report for the government's Waste Strategy 2007 showed that the amount of energy recovered from waste increased by around 3% between 2007 and 2008, but the government said it want to see a "much greater uptake" of AD by local authorities, businesses and farmers in a way that is "both cost effective and beneficial to the environment."

Defra estimates that if all the food and other organic waste that the UK produces could be harnessed in this way it could provide enough heat and energy to run over two million homes.

Anaerobic Digestion

AD can be used on farms to process animal slurries and other agricultural residues; by the water industry to process sewage sludge; and to process food waste and biodegradable packaging that would otherwise go to landfill.

The Waste Strategy for England 2007 aims to incentivise recovering energy from waste, as well as reducing, re-using, and recycling it, and AD is among the technologies that will receive additional support in the form of two Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs)/MWh as a result of changes introduced by the Energy Act 2008.

This government's call for a larger take-up by local authorities comes after it announced in this year's Budget that an additional £10 million funding package would go towards new composting and AD facilities, which could be able to process over 300,000 tonnes of additional food waste every year.

And, in February 2008, Mr Benn said that up to £10 million would be made available from the Environmental Transformation Fund towards the construction of new plants to demonstrate ‘state of the art' use of AD to create renewable energy. These are expected to be built by March 2011.