Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to reduce toxic landfill by encouraging the use of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) incineration of waste.

The Government's Resources and Waste Strategy, published in 2018, sets out how we will minimise the damage caused to our natural environment by reducing and managing waste safely and carefully. A key principle is to prevent waste in the first place, in keeping with the waste hierarchy, which ranks options for waste management according to their environmental impact. Where waste does occur, we need to manage it in the most efficient way possible. After waste prevention, priority goes to reuse, recycling, and then recovery. Disposal, for example in landfill, is generally regarded as the worst option.

We are therefore encouraging increased use of heat through Combined Heat and Power (CHP) from EfW as it almost doubles the fuel efficiency and can play a really valuable role in our transition to decarbonising the heating of homes and buildings. There is financial support from government for EfW plants and heat networks developers to do this in the form of the existing Heat Networks Investment Project and the upcoming Green Heat Network Fund. The Heat Network Investment Project is already funding CHP based EfW projects in Leeds, London and Cardiff that will supply low carbon heat to local homes and businesses.