The preference for recycling support over incineration has come from Alan Lovell DL, who was chosen by the Environment Secretary, George Eustice, to be the next Agency chair, subject to final confirmation.
Mr Lovell, who has direct knowledge of the cost of incineration, landfill and anaerobic digestion in his corporate career, has also come out strongly against exports, saying it is “completely wrong” to export waste.
He is due to succeed Emma Howard Boyd – whose second term in office ends in September – and was put forward by head-hunters for the job having been on the shortlist for the position six years ago when the current chair was chosen.
Pre-appointment committee
Mr Lovell, 68, spoke last week at a pre-appointment hearing held by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) and Environmental Audit (EAC) Committees in Parliament. The committees approved his appointment.
Telling the committee members that he was a strong supporter of the circular economy, Mr Lovell said he wanted to express two points on waste.
“When it comes to waste, I think we need to relook at the financial incentives to ease that,” he said. “We have financial incentives to favour incineration over landfill, which is appropriate. We should definitely have some form of financial incentive to encourage recycling and other aspects more strongly in preference to incineration. That is point one.”
It is completely wrong for us to be exporting waste
– Alan Lovell DL
The incoming chair followed with a second point, saying: “The Environment Agency spent some time reviewing waste, particularly stuff that is going overseas. In my personal view, it is completely wrong for us to be exporting waste. We should be dealing with it, and there are several benefits related to that.”
Viridor
Mr Lovell has first-hand experience of the costs of energy from waste (EfW) as chairman of Interserve plc. In 2019, the company was subject to a claim of £72 million from Viridor and its then parent company, Pennon, over the delayed Glasgow energy recovery plant, which Interserve was building (see letsrecycle.com story).
Coincidentally, last week, Viridor – now owned by investment firms KKR and Equitix – put forward the need for EfW – described as incineration by the next Agency chair – to benefit from green funding acknowledgement from government (see letsrecyle.com story).
Waste sector
While most of the questioning of Mr Lovell on the EFRA committee was around his work as a “turnaround specialist” and the water sector, he also told the committee of his past involvement in the waste sector.
Mr Lovell said: “I got engaged, as you know, in a renewable energy business in 2006. It was owned by Terra Firma, that first one. It was one of the sponsors of Al Gore’s visit to the UK in 2006 to launch [documentary film] An Inconvenient Truth. I was one of the 80 or so trained up to be a presenter of An Inconvenient Truth, and I did that 30 or so times.”
The 2006 company was Infinis which as, the landfill gas side of the Waste Recycling Group, was spun off when the rest of the group was acquired that year for £1.4 billion by Spain’s FCC Group. Mr Lovell noted that he “acquired and integrated a 40MW landfill gas company,” and that “Infinis listed as a FT-SE 250 in 2013”.
Tamar Energy
Mr Lovell gained knowledge of the anaerobic digestion sector as chairman of Tamar Energy, which had several plants including one in Hampshire.
He held the post of chief executive and chairman at the same time, before relinquishing the chief executive post in 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).
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