OPINION: Every year, around 4.5 million tonnes of waste wood arise across the UK – from construction sites, household clear-outs, commercial refits and civic amenity centres.
Nearly three million tonnes of this material per year – including lower grade wood that is difficult to recycle – currently finds a vital second life in the country’s waste wood biomass plants.
These facilities don’t just keep material out of landfill and prevent methane emissions. They quietly produce up to 700MW of dependable, low carbon baseload energy – enough to power 1.5 million homes – and form the backbone of a wider circular economy system that most people never see, but everyone relies on.
However, from next year (April 2027), government support for these facilities under the Renewables Obligation begins to fall away. This will force many of these plants to close and with them will go an important domestic outlet for millions of tonnes of waste wood.
Over the past few months, temporary shutdowns at end-use facilities have already triggered an oversupply of waste wood unlike anything seen before. This has made it considerably more difficult and expensive in the short term to find outlets for waste wood.
However, this oversupply could be merely the tip of the iceberg if the future of waste wood biomass plants are not protected as a matter of urgency.
Without biomass capacity, operators will have two options, neither sustainable or desirable: either export their waste wood, or send it to landfill.
In a decade when the UK is struggling to meet its climate commitments, either outcome would be deeply regressive.
And the lost energy capacity could not come at a worse time. As the country seeks to become a clean energy superpower and introduce more renewable, intermittent sources of energy, the country needs more clean, reliable baseload power, not less – helping to balance the grid when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.
If these facilities are allowed to fail, local authorities will need to pay higher gate fees to dispose of waste wood to mainland Europe and we will then import power back at a higher price, forgoing the green credentials provided from our own domestic resource and jeopardising our energy security.
But perhaps the most overlooked danger is what plant closures would mean for the future of negative emissions technologies.
Many institutions, including the Climate Change Committee, have acknowledged that if we are to reach our carbon reduction targets then carbon capture technologies such as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) will be essential.
The WRA’s sites have the potential to capture up to 3.6 million tonnes of CO₂ every year from the waste wood fraction of fuel alone, through BECCS.
This is one of the few viable routes to truly negative emissions – a solution acknowledged and advocated in the government’s own independent review of Greenhouse Gas Removals.
If these biomass plants shut down now, we don’t just lose an energy source. We lose the very infrastructure required to build a meaningful BECCS sector in the UK.
Transitional Support
The WRA isn’t calling for indefinite subsidies or a continuation of ROCs. What it is asking for is a pragmatic, time limited bridge: transitional support that keeps these plants viable until BECCS technologies and supporting policy and infrastructure reach scale in the mid 2030s.
A Contract for Difference (CfD) type mechanism could provide this stability at relatively low cost – particularly when weighed against the consequences of failure: rising waste management costs, increased landfill use, the loss of low carbon energy, and a major setback for UK climate policy.
The request is clear, and the timeline is tight. In policy terms, 2027 is in the blink of an eye.
The UK faces a stark choice. It can allow its current, successful and compliant waste wood supply-chain system to unravel – forcing material overseas, burdening local authorities, undermining its recycling ecosystem, jeopardising domestic energy security and sacrificing millions of tonnes of potential negative emissions.
Or it can act decisively, protecting a sector that underpins both environmental protection and clean energy – ensuring a future where waste wood isn’t a problem to be managed, but a resource to be transformed, contributing to a valuable part of the circular economy.
Without swift government intervention, the consequences will be felt far beyond the recycling industry. This is a crossroads moment for waste, for energy, and for climate policy.
And the clock is ticking.
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