No Incinerator 4 Horsham Community Group (Ni4H) is delighted that the Rt. Hon. Sir Mark Spencer MP has issued a Direction to the Environment Agency under regulation 62 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, requiring a short-term pause in the determination of applications for environmental permits for certain types of waste incineration facilities in England.
See correspondence here:
Ni4H understands that, in theory, the Environment Secretary also has the power to direct the Environment Agency to revoke previously granted Environmental Permits, such as the one granted to the Horsham incinerator (EPR/CB3308TD/V002). For this to happen, there would need to be a reason, for example, over provision of incineration capacity, harm to recycling rates.
The UK Government has issued a direction to the Environment Agency to put a temporary pause on permits for new incinerators to allow “a short period for Defra officials to lead a piece of work considering the role of waste incineration in the management of residual wastes in England.”
“We are witnessing the start of what we hope will be a comprehensive moratorium on new waste incineration capacity in England. This follows similar moves in Wales and Scotland.
For years UKWIN has been gathering evidence about how the over-provision of incineration has been holding back recycling in England. Wales banned new incineration capacity three years ago and is now achieving 66% recycling. Scotland’s recycling rate rose to more than 62% since introducing their moratorium.
We hope this move, together with other measures, will support England to improve upon last year’s 43% recycling rate.
UKWIN hopes the Scottish Environment Minister will now also direct the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency from issuing new permits for any incinerators that have yet to be built.”
Shlomo Dowen, National Coordinator of the UK Without Incineration Network (UKWIN)
Notes and references
“We are witnessing the start of what we hope will be a comprehensive moratorium on new waste incineration capacity in England.”
“This follows similar moves in Wales and Scotland.”
For Wales see: https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-taking-action-make-circular-economy-reality and for Scotland see: https://www.gov.scot/news/putting-limits-on-incineration-capacity/
“For years UKWIN has been gathering evidence about how the over-provision of incineration has been holding back recycling in England.”
See: https://ukwin.org.uk/overcapacity/ and https://ukwin.org.uk/files/pdf/UKWIN-Examples-of-incineration-harming-recycling-July-2019.pdf
“Wales banned new incineration capacity three years ago and is now achieving 66% recycling.”
See: https://myrecyclingwales.org.uk/local-authorities
“Scotland’s recycling rate rose to more than 62% since introducing their moratorium.”
See: https://beta.sepa.scot/news/2024/scotland-s-recycling-rate-hits-all-time-high/
“We hope this move, together with other measures, will support England to improve upon last year’s 43% recycling rate.”
Other measures include The Environmental Targets (Residual Waste) (England) Regulations 2023 available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/92/regulation/2/made and measures that are part of both Simpler Recycling – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/simpler-recycling-collections-and-tougher-regulation-to-reform-waste-system – and the Environmental Improvement Plan – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environmental-improvement-plan
UKWIN’s overarching mission is to bring about an end to the incineration of mixed waste. Our role includes helping individuals and groups develop the case against incineration and supporting networking and information between campaigners, and in doing so promote the UK-wide movement in favour of more sustainable waste/resource management.
