Out of all the various residual waste treatment options available, incinerators form the majority of facilities currently in operation or waiting to receive planning consent or funding. This is in spite of increasing calls from environmentalists to phase out energy-from-waste (EfW) plants, with Friends of the Earth saying that by 2020, these incinerators will be ‘almost as polluting in terms of CO2 emissions as new or refitted coal-fired power stations, and 78 per cent worse than new gas power stations’.

Despite this, and the hefty price tag associated with incinerators, some still believe they offer a straightforward waste solution in terms of logistics and energy output. With the government on board with this kind of thinking, we’ve started building mass-burn infrastructure throughout the UK. The thing is, it seems as though we might have miscalculated how many we need, and we won’t have enough waste to burn to keep the plants running!

In fact, there’s growing concern about residual waste treatment overcapacity. Eunomia consultancy’s now annual ‘Residual Waste Infrastructure Review’ notes that the UK’s 92 waste treatment facilities either ‘operating’ or ‘under construction’ can currently handle 18.2 million tonnes per annum (tpa), 9.3 million tpa less than the waste arising from municipal, commercial and industrial sources in 2013. However, add to the mix the 21.3 million tonnes of waste treatment capacity with planning consent, and Eunomia says we could see overcapacity to the tune of 12 million tpa (and that’s without taking into account probable decreases in waste arisings).

Yet the consultancy also suggests it is ‘unlikely’ that the UK would ever reach such a level of overcapacity, as it can be harder to receive funding than planning consent, and each time a ‘merchant’ facility begins construction in a given locale, the ‘likelihood of nearby merchant facilities reaching financial close decreases significantly’.

But others believe we already have more EfW plants than we need, with Shlomo Dowen, from the UK Without Incineration Network, telling Resource: “If one accepts the notion that incineration should be limited only to genuinely residual combustible material…then the UK already faces incineration overcapacity.”

It does seem that the increasing awareness of ‘overcapacity’ has led some to rethink their investment policies. In February, Defra itself withdrew £217.1 million of private finance initiative (PFI) funding for three incinerators, saying: “We now expect to have sufficient infrastructure in England to enable the UK to meet the EU target of reducing waste sent to landfill.” And the following month, Urbaser Balfour Beatty’s Javelin Park incinerator was unanimously refused planning permission by Gloucestershire County Council, in part due to Stroud District Council’s determination that none of its black bag waste would be fed into the plant, but also because of concerns about the aesthetics of the plant and incineration’s detrimental impacts on recycling rates.

Likewise, the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk has refused to send its waste to Norfolk County Council for treatment in a proposed Cory Wheelabrator incinerator in King’s Lynn. It’s a decision that the borough’s Portfolio Holder for Environment, Councillor Brian Long, admits has caused Norfolk County Council some concern: “It wasn’t looked upon very well. We took legal advice and believe we’ve done it within the spirit of that law in that we will only be taking waste away from the waste stream to be put into a recycling process.”

Long continues: “The reason they didn’t like it is that they’re in negotiations to build an incinerator scheduled to take 170,000 tonnes of Norfolk’s residual waste, and Norfolk is already teetering on the edge of not having that amount of domestic residual waste, which is what the PFI credits are awarded for. And it’s actually going down. And any efforts to increase recycling rates are hampered if you’ve got a plant that takes the capacity away.”

The Cory Wheelabrator incinerator, a £500-million, 268,000 tpa facility, was granted planning permission last June and an Environment Agency permit in July. However, after conducting a public poll that found that 94 per cent of respondents (65,000 residents) were opposed to the incinerator, the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk appealed to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Community and Local Government, to ‘call in’ the incinerator’s planning application. The council cited reasons including: the proposal goes against the proximity principle; Norfolk County Council did not adequately assess flood risk; and there are more sustainable alternatives both in terms of scale and location.

A public inquiry followed and concluded on 17 May. The Inspector, Elizabeth Hill, will now make a recommendation (by way of a report) to the Secretary of State in September, who is not expected to issue his decision on planning permission until the end of the year at the earliest.

In the meantime, however, the borough council has taken waste matters into its own hands, as Long explains: “After the result of the poll, we had to look for an alternative. As a district-level council, we only had the option of recycling waste, we aren’t allowed to dispose of waste. And to that end we’ve looked for alternatives that met the county council’s requirement of how much of residual waste had to be recycled before it is deemed a recycling process rather than a residual process. Breaking a contract halfway through with a district is expensive, so we’ve looked to change our collection regime because that was due to change as of this year. The next part of the jigsaw is what goes into the recycling and that changes from April next year. And then tackling what’s left in the residual waste bin, and that can happen as soon as the new plant is up and running.

“After a public tender, the only company that met the council’s criteria of being able to recycle more than 50 per cent of the residual waste given to it was Material Works.” (Long is pictured, right, with MD Robert Billson.)

For Long, dealing with waste where it is created and maximising recycling is key: “We believe that waste needs to be dealt with in what used to be called the proximity principle, as close as it can to where it arises within West Norfolk. Although our agreement with Material Works allows neighbouring boroughs to call upon the services, which would mean other plants being built around Norfolk to service their waste, other boroughs are sceptical on the deliverability, but have shown that they will be interested on the basis that a working demonstrator can be demonstrated to them. And that is one of our conditions.”

As for the cost, both environmentally and financially, he adds: “[The Material Works alternative] offers a cost-neutral method, with our aspiration to strive towards a 100 per cent recycling rate over the term of the contract. “

The 16-year Framework Agreement and Conditional Contract with Material Works, a company set up by Duratrust to deliver this project, would see Material Works receiving all the waste collected by the council from householders and any trade waste from commercial customers. The waste will be sorted to remove cardboard, paper, glass, metal and batteries, which will be sent for separate recycling. The separately collected food waste will be treated using an anaerobic digester locally, to create methane to power the ‘Saltus’ process that will treat the remaining waste. Duratrust’s patented ‘Saltus’ process uses ‘mixing and particle size reduction techniques’. Duratrust’s Robert Billson explains: “All drying, sterilisation and torrefaction [a mild form of pyrolysis that produces a dry product with no biological activity] is conducted within closed Saltus machines under partial vacuum conditions. The torrefaction process involves heating biomass to a moderate temperature in the absence of air. Condensed water is collected in tanks which are analysed for organic and heavy metal contamination and pH before being treated and released to the MRF for reuse within the anaerobic digestion plant or disposal via drains under licence.”

According to Billson, resultant granules, called Omnicite, can be used to create a range of products that act as wood replacement in industry and construction, including benches and pallets. The remaining two per cent of waste would be landfilled.

Once the planning and environmental conditions have been met, and independent verification received, it is hoped that the new technology will be up and running by April 2014. Long concludes: “If the incinerator is still passed, our survey work suggests that we still should find an alternative. In terms of the environment, the right thing to do and the legal thing to do is recycle.”

Pickles’s incinerator verdict, meanwhile, will be hotly anticipated.