OPINION: ‘Reforming the ETS holds the key to growing the advanced recycling sector’

OPINON: Emissions from the UK waste sector have remained stubbornly high, according to the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), remaining resolutely at 25MtCO₂e between 2020 and 2021. In the same period, emissions from energy from waste (EfW) facilities grew by 5%.

In response, the UK Emissions Trading Scheme has decided to act, bringing waste incineration under its watchful eye. From 2028, EfW plant operators will find themselves purchasing the same emission permits procured by firms currently working in aviation and power generation.

This is good news for the environment, of course. But it’s also good news for the country’s nascent advanced recycling sector. But how does this move on ETS signal wider change for the sustainability of plastic?

Challenge

The CCC have been direct about the need for the EfW sector to reduce its emissions, going so far as to say that the growth of the EfW sector “is undermining efforts to reduce emissions” across the wider waste sector. 48.2% of waste collected by the UK’s local authorities in 2020 was sent for incineration versus just 15.1% in 2010, according to DEFRA, including over 2million tonnes of ‘unrecyclable’ plastic waste (BPF).

To address the issue, the ETS scheme will create incentives for firms to reduce emissions wherever these are most cost-effective. Municipal solid waste (MSW) or refuse derived fuel (RDF) contains a small – c15% – but important fraction of plastic, which accounts for over c60% of the EfW plant’s carbon emissions. The commercial incentive to burn unrecyclable plastic waste, through paying a gate fee to EfW operators, will diminish. The EfW sector has to address the amount of plastic waste it burns or face a hefty ETS bill. Whilst carbon capture technologies are suggested to mitigate carbon emissions, it isn’t a circular solution, and will continue carbon emissions from fossil extraction. Scope 3 emissions will therefore remain high for future plastic products.

The question remains however, if EfW plants are no longer burning plastic, where will this waste go? Can this waste, currently recovered for its calorific value, be recycled and become a resource once again?  Here is where advanced recycling plants provide an answer and help enable the waste management sector take advantage of ‘low hanging ‘plastic’ fruit’ to decarbonise EfW.

Most of the world’s plastic packaging is used only once

Historic waste

Today, most of the world’s plastic packaging is used only once, and only 14% is collected for recycling. According to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation (EMF), 95% of the value of plastic packaging material, worth USD 80-120 billion annually, is lost to the economy. EfW with carbon capture is single use, whereas recycling plastic and returning it to a form where it can be re-used, and then recycled again, represents much better value. So, instead of recovering the energy from waste via incineration, we need to go one step up the waste management hierarchy and recycle it.

Advanced recycling technologies now exist that can process an increasingly wide range of plastic waste. At Mura Technology, we have developed a unique form of advanced plastic recycling, called HydroPRS^TM, which uses water under high pressure and high temperature to convert flexible waste plastics into industry-ready, liquid hydrocarbon products for use in the manufacture of new plastics. HydroPRS^TM is able to process plastic waste streams that currently go to landfill or incineration and can tolerate food contamination and multi-layer plastics.

Currently, there are no commercial scale advanced recycling plants in the UK, but this will soon change. Mura Technology will commission its first HydroPRS^TM plant this autumn with a 20,000 tonne annual output and plans to have 1,000,000 tonnes of plastic recycling capacity in operation or development annually by 2025, with 70-80,000 annual tonnes sited in the UK.

As well as simply being capable of processing this plastic waste, HydroPRS^TM emits significantly lower quantities of CO₂ when compared to EfW. An independent, peer-reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) published by Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick found an 80% reduction in carbon emissions can be achieved if waste plastic is diverted away from incineration and instead processed by HydroPRS™ – a saving of 1.86 tonnes CO₂ eq Global Warming Potential (GWP) per tonne of waste plastic processed, or over 40,000 tonnes for the first commercial scale plant. So, for the 2 million tonnes of plastic waste currently incinerated, that would lead to a saving c4 million tonnes CO₂ emissions.

Mura are providing an alternative, more sustainable home for the plastic waste that currently goes up in smoke in the UK, and the ETS change tips the economic balance in favour of recycling over recovery. But this is a changing landscape – we need to plan and invest now for what’s to come to take advantage of the regulatory direction ahead.

Bringing EfW into ETS is a key enabler for change for the whole plastics value chain

Better benefits for the value chain

Bringing EfW into ETS is a key enabler for change for the whole plastics value chain, benefiting all actors. If the plastic waste the UK produces and currently burns is now to be recycled via advanced recycling, a new end market for residual waste plastics – particularly the films, flexible and multi-layered plastic packaging formats – will be created. Competition between end markets will reduce the level of gate fees that waste management companies will pay to have this plastic processed.

This is an important market signal as, with Government’s plans for enhanced waste collections to include soft plastics, the quanta of material needing to be processed will grow significantly. Yet with a reduced ability to export this material following the Basel Convention and changes within the European Union’s approach to managing its waste, a domestic solution is essential. Anticipating the regulatory changes ahead, establishing a residual plastic recycling solution at scale now through advanced recycling infrastructure, looks to be timely.

Diverting plastic waste from incineration decarbonises an extremely emissions-intensive part of our economy, slowing the rate at which greenhouse gases are pumped out into our atmosphere. Where plastic waste is diverted from EfW, advanced recycling will generate low-carbon feedstock for the chemical industry, creating more economic value from waste material and creating a circular economy for plastic products. This delivers a critical shot in the arm to achieve the UK Plastic Pact targets 2 (recyclability), 3 (recycling rate) and 4 (recycled content) – the circular economy win-win that the Pact’s supporters have been working towards.

And whilst we don’t know the full implications of the Global Plastic Treaty, becoming less polluting, and more circular, will be a very likely outcome. Deploying ETS for plastic waste is a no-regrets, strategic driver to manage this material more sustainably.

The world has gradually woken up to the realisation that the by-products of our society, from plastic packaging waste to greenhouse gases, must be controlled. The burning of waste cannot continue when innovation has created avenues that divert it away from the environment and give economic value to it. The reforms to the UK ETS, much needed as they are, may well help to grow an entirely new industry that is crucial to future economies and the integrity of our environment.