Why waste can't wait on carbon cuts

The decarbonisation race is on – and the waste sector is no longer sitting on the sidelines.

For a long time, waste management has flown just under the radar in climate policy circles. But with the UK waste sector now the eighth highest emitter, responsible for nearly 25 million tonnes of CO2e (MtCO2e), the spotlight is well and truly on. From bin to budget, decarbonisation isn’t just an environmental imperative, but an economic one.

In our recent webinar, ‘Decarbonisation in the waste sector – driving change in a performance-founded economy’, leading voices across local government and the private sector explored how the waste industry can align with the UK’s tightening carbon budgets and shift from being a passive polluter to an active decarbonisation driver. Their insights were sharp, sometimes sobering, but ultimately solution-focused.

Hosted by Stuart Hayward-Higham, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK’s Chief Technical Development and Innovation Officer, our expert panel included Chris Jonas, Tolvik Consulting Director, and Steve Palfrey, Suffolk County Council Assistant Director for Environment and Waste.

Why the urgency?

By the time we hit Carbon Budget 7, which covers the late 2030s to early 2040s, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) wants no energy-from-waste (EfW) plants without carbon capture and storage. But here’s the kicker: the sector still faces a shortfall in treatment capacity, meaning we’re being asked to reduce emissions while still managing rising volumes of residual waste.

It's not just about EfW. The waste sector is being asked to deliver 10.3 million tonnes of direct emissions savings by 2035, alongside 8.3 million tonnes of indirect savings through better resource efficiency. That includes targets like a 4.7 MtCO2e cut via waste reduction, and a 5.6 MtCO2e drop from landfill bans, food waste reduction and recycling.

One hierarchy to rule them all

The roadmap is clear: avoid, reduce, substitute, sequester, and only then offset. That’s the order of the carbon hierarchy.

• Avoidance includes basics like hybrid meetings, public transport over flights and ditching single-use plastics. But it also means rethinking product design, such as making goods longer-lasting, repairable and recyclable. It also means investing in better data to understand and prevent waste in the first place.

• Reduction is where operational efficiency shines. More intelligent routing, LED lighting, heat management and capturing landfill gas from closed sites are all already happening, and should be scaled. Diverting food waste from landfill and upping plastics recycling will also move the needle.

• Substitution is all about swapping fossil fuels with renewables. Think solar panels, electric vehicles and even green hydrogen from waste streams. And with many waste operators already generating power from their own EfW or anaerobic digestion (AD) plants, there’s momentum here.

• Sequestration remains expensive and complex, whether capturing emissions from EfW or AD. But it’s essential if we’re to meet carbon neutrality targets, especially for unavoidable waste fractions.

• And finally, offsetting, while useful, should be a last resort. Yes, trees are lovely, but they don’t clean up this year’s emissions by next quarter.

Can we recycle our way out of this?

Not entirely. While policies like Simpler Recycling and food waste collections will help, they won’t eliminate the estimated 20-24 million tonnes of residual waste we will still be dealing with by the mid-2030s. And EfW facilities dealing with this material could produce over 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually, 10 million of which is fossil-based.

Plastic film collections and new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes are starting to bite, but fragile domestic reprocessing infrastructure and competition from cheaper imports make scaling tricky. That’s why real change will need government-backed investment, predictable revenue streams and bold policy signals to make circular businesses bankable.

The ETS and its cost implications

The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is heading for the waste sector and it’s a serious financial curveball. For councils like Suffolk, the projected cost could reach £6-7 million annually. That’s about £17 per household, or 1% of council tax. Nationally, the bill could be £0.5-1 billion a year.

New regulations, higher costs and council reorganisations could lead to tough, time-consuming discussions about how we update current contracts and ways of working.

And carbon prices? Volatile as ever. One year’s clever hedging could save millions; the next could blow a hole in a council’s budget. Expecting local waste officers to become carbon traders? Not exactly risk-free.

If we’re to avoid this becoming a tax trap, ETS must be matched by practical policy levers that empower councils to reduce emissions at source, and not just penalise them for existing systems.

One bin, many levers

Decarbonisation won’t come from one lever alone. It’s going to take an all-of-the-above strategy:

Producer responsibility must go beyond packaging. Fossil heavy items like textiles, carpets, mattresses and nappies need EPR schemes of their own. In Suffolk alone, around 68% of its recycling centre residual waste contains fossil carbon.

Re-use and repair should move from community corners to everyday local services. With joint buying power and a bit of start-up funding, councils could scale these circular approaches and make them the norm, not the niche.

For products like soft furnishings containing forever chemicals, where incineration is still the safest route, free allowances under ETS could avoid punishing the very councils doing the right thing.

So… are we on track?

According to our poll at the session, just 1% of participants think the UK’s current policy mix will get us to our decarbonisation targets. Over half (53%) say we’re making progress, but not fast or wide enough.

That’s a damning verdict, but not a defeat. As one speaker put it: we’re all responsible – government, industry and individuals alike. And that’s the opportunity: to reshape a sector once seen as the end of the line into a key player in the UK’s low-carbon economy.

Waste no time.

If you missed the live webinar session, you can watch it on-demand here.