Incineration Briefing

Under the The Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012, a ban on sending biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) to landfill is due to be introduced in 2025, four years later than originally planned by the Scottish Government. There is a growing concern that councils will look at incineration as the solution to the waste problem, instead of focusing on prevention and reuse which are at the top of the waste hierarchy above recovery and disposal. 

There is no place for incineration in the conversation about how we tackle the climate crisis. This briefing sets out why Friends of the Earth Scotland believes there should be a moratorium on building new incinerators in Scotland. We are calling for a moratorium for three main reasons:

• Incineration wastes valuable resources
• Incineration pollutes
• Incineration is bad for climate change