Getting the right blend

We recognise that waste treatment technologies can provide a solution for the disposal of the residual waste fraction. However, the UK waste planning system currently provides no mechanism to highlight where new facilities are required in relation to current/future capacity.

For UK unitary and waste disposal authorities entering into long-term residual treatment contracts, underpinned by guaranteed minimum tonnages (GMT), there is a genuine risk that residual treatment over-capacity could act as a disincentive to increasing recycling rates. Whilst investment in infrastructure to achieve landfill diversion and recycling improvements is an imperative, the business case for exceeding the recycling performance could be questionable.

Not only does the cost of delivering additional recycling typically increase as the higher hanging fruit is sought, but also an increase in recycling may also bring with it a greater risk that future residual feedstock falls below minimum contractual thresholds. This has already proven to be the case under a number of contracts.

Furthermore, since clean, source-separated recyclables are a valuable resource yielding clear returns throughout the supply chain, the rationale for pursuing other recovery over and above recycling only becomes viable when these resources are mixed together.

Threshold

Consequently, the boundary between extracting value from mixed material and otherwise recovering it via residual waste treatment is likely to become blurred, once the residual treatment capacity threshold is achieved. Recently published waste data showing the lowest year-on-year increase in UK recycling for ten years underlines this cost/benefit risk. Continued financial pressure on local authorities, coupled with a relaxation in individual authority recycling rate reporting requirements may only serve to tighten the material quality screw further.

CIWM is quite right to highlight the distinct lack of consensus regarding future waste treatment capacity (see letsrecycle.com story), but to adopt the opposite tack of firing ahead with PFIs on the basis of questionable evidence either way, could be counterproductive to achieving necessary recyclate quality improvements and, potentially, render the UK in breach of waste hierarchy obligations. A counterargument to this might be that currently exported SRF could plug a future capacity gap but with favourable gate fees at older waste treatment facilities on the Continent, the economic benefit of re-securing domestic supply at some point down the line remains wholly unclear.

Strategy

Debate over the withdrawal of project-specific PFI funding forms only a small piece of a currently chaotic puzzle. If we are to avoid following the suit of other, seemingly high-performing Northern European Member States that have over-egged the EfW pudding, Government needs to take the lead in initiating wider dialogue to establish a broadly agreed evidence base and more importantly, a long-term national strategy that transcends vested interests and leaves little to chance.