New Waste to Energy Incinerator report released

Media Release

Tuesday 3^rd September 2024

Tomorrow we are releasing a comprehensive new report reviewing the science and global experience around incineration, finding that the technology is an outdated, unsustainable method for waste disposal, as burning waste, especially plastics, produces dangerous air emissions and results in massive quantities of hazardous wastes that are difficult to dispose of safely. Incineration is particularly unsuited for the Global South, which faces a concerted push to establish waste incineration widely, as there is little experience with such technologies and industrial regulatory oversight is lacking.

Given the challenges faced by the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change, and toxic pollution, the report finds that waste incineration contributes to all three of these interlinked problems. The report, by Arnika, the Centre for Environment Justice and Development (CEJAD) in Kenya, Centre de Recherche et d‘Education pour le Développement (CREPD) in Cameroon, Toxics Free Australia (TFA), and IPEN finds that:

• Incinerating waste emits large volumes of CO2, pollutes the environment with a variety of highly toxic dioxins and other toxic chemicals (including substances linked to cancer, damage to the immune system, reproductive problems, developmental defects and other serious health concerns) in quantities exceeding planetary limits, and contributes to biodiversity loss.
• Incineration destroys valuable phosphorus resources in biowaste and disrupts global biogeochemical cycles.
• Communities living near incinerators may be at higher risk of health issues due to their harmful effects.
• Fly ash and bottom ash from incinerators are highly contaminated with dioxins and other chemicals such as PFAS.
• Alternatives to waste incineration exist and are better investments of public funds.

The report also finds that “chemical recycling” of plastic waste is similarly problematic in terms of environmental impacts as incineration and should not be considered an acceptable alternative.