LOCAL MP Dr Andrew Murrison has written to the Secretary of State for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Grant Shapps, to ask why the companies building and profiting from incinerators are not subject to the emissions trading scheme (ETS).
The ETS implements the ‘polluter pays’ principle by demanding that companies buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit. Estimates of carbon emissions from incinerators range from six to seven million tonnes per annum.
Andrew Murrison’s intervention comes after openDemocracy reported that if the ETS applied to incinerators last year, they would have paid £554 million for their pollution. However, under current plans the incinerators will not be part of the ETS until 2027 or 2028.
Speaking on this Andrew Murrison said, “By any reckoning we will be substantially over-capacity on incinerators meaning they can only survive economically if we continue to feed them plastics. It just isn’t good enough to have a waste management model that consigns an ever-increasing tonnage of plastic waste to the great landfill in the sky.
“It’s unacceptable that the companies profiting from these monstrosities are not paying for the harm they are causing. The polluter must pay, not in 2028, but now.”
The MP is also lobbying hard with ministers and advisers to get a moratorium on more burners and an incineration tax to promote responsible waste management.
He recently quizzed the Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rebecca Pow, about incinerators in general and the one planned for Westbury by Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL).
He has recently written to support the banning of new incinerators as in Scotland and Wales, an incinerator tax on operators and the immediate removal of the incinerator industry from its exemption from the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Andrew Murrison said, “The minister listened to my points and said she would write in response to the written arguments I’ve sent. There is no question that we should be reducing, reusing and recycling waste rather than sending it up the stack to the great landfill in the sky.”
NREL received planning permission to build a £200m energy from waste incinerator at the Northacre Industrial Estate in Westbury earlier this year following approval by a government inspector despite the plans facing fierce objections by local people.
