UK sleepwalking into waste treatment capacity crisis

The Environmental Services Association (ESA), the voice for the UK’s resource and waste management industry, today issued a stark warning following the release of a new report (“Residual waste infrastructure review issue 12”) into UK waste treatment capacity by consultancy Eunomia.

ESA Executive Director, Jacob Hayler said: "Eunomia’s findings are flawed and have been contradicted by report after report from everyone else who’s looked at our residual waste treatment needs.

Year after year these consultants have claimed that the UK was heading for overcapacity – its earlier reports suggested that we would already have reached overcapacity today – and it is galling that they continue to repeat the message when we are crying out for more investment in our industry. Their abilities to overstate available capacity and under-predict residual waste arisings are astounding.

The consensus position on waste treatment is that we will end up over five million tonnes short of energy from waste capacity by 2030. This is what the government needs to understand if it is not to sleepwalk into a capacity crisis.”

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