12th June 2001

OPEN LETTER TO MEPS

WHY WASTE INCINERATION MUST BE KEPT OUT OF THE DRAFT EUROPEAN RENEWABLES DIRECTIVE.
 

Dear Member of the Parliament,

Climate change.  Local air pollution.  Security of supply.  Employment.  The years ahead present big challenges for Europe in providing its citizens with energy efficiently, affordably and with minimal impact on the environment.  Fortunately, a range of clean renewable energy sources – wind, solar, sustainable biomass and others – are now ready  for wider deployment.  The advantages are already being felt in the EU, which is now the world leader in many of these technologies, which have created tens of thousands of European jobs.

With the proposed Directive on renewable energy sources, the EU is recognising the importance these new technologies have for our future, and protecting the mechanisms designed to promote them.  But perversely, a few governments are trying to pervert this support to increase the profitability of waste incineration.  By including municipal waste incineration within the Directive’s definition of renewable energy, they hope to divert support away from true renewables and towards incinerators.

This would be a serious mistake.  Leaving aside the question of whether waste incineration is an appropriate method of dealing with waste, it is imperative that it must be kept out of the definition of renewable energy, for two simple reasons.

· Waste incineration is not a renewable energy source!

Household waste contains all sorts of products, both biodegradable (such as paper, waste food) and non-biodegradable (plastic, PVC, etc.)  The non-biodegradable portion that generates energy is almost all derived from oil.  In other words, it’s fossil fuel energy, not renewables.

Some countries have tried to maintain the fiction that if biodegradable wastes are half of the household waste by weight, they must be providing half the energy, and that this can be counted as renewable.  This is absurd: much of this biodegradable material is wet vegetables and the like, which actually absorb energy from incineration, not release it.

Even biodegradable material which does burn, such as paper, is a false source of energy.  Many studies have shown that more energy can be saved by recycling this paper than could be gained by incinerating it.

· Waste incineration needs no extra support – it simply takes funds away from true renewables

Many countries that want to encourage waste incineration as part of their waste management strategy already support it through levies or taxes on landfill.  Waste incineration is already technologically mature and financially viable.

Renewable energy sources on the other hand need support because they are either very new technologies with low market volume, or because they are disadvantaged by market barriers that favour large centralised generation of electricity.  Neither of these applies to waste incineration.

Including waste incineration in the definition of renewable energy is wrong in every sense.  It is illogical, because most of the energy comes ultimately from oil.  It is distortionary, because subsidies will be diverted into an already viable technology.  And it defeats the main aim of renewable energy promotion: to help bring new, innovative and environmentally benign technologies into the EU energy market.

Incineration of municipal waste must be unambiguously excluded from the definition of renewable energy in the Directive.
 

Yours truly,

Rob Bradely, Energy Specialist, Climate Network Europe

Giulio Volpi, Climate Policy Officer, World-Wide Fund for Nature