I recently wrote about the potential for waste to be imported into the UK to fill EFW capacity in the future. The interesting thing is that whilst a great deal of focus is on reducing exports and providing infrastructure in the UK to facilitate this, there is already a pattern emerging within the UK of increasing imports of waste which are not being considered.
The UK has been receiving ‘end of waste’ materials for some time. The largest, and probably most extreme example is the c.4.5 million tonnes (mt) per year of wood pellets imported into Drax from the USA and Canada from a ‘waste wood’ forestry origin (notwithstanding the recent investigations by BBC Panorama). Smaller examples will inevitably include recycled plastic wastes that will be increasing in the future to meet recycled content demands in the UK but will not recorded through the ‘waste system’.
Furthermore, the UK has also been receiving waste for treatment in the UK for some time as well. The graph below shows that up to 2017 permitted sites in England accepted around 400 thousand tonnes (kt) of waste a year from outside the UK, of which around half was notified under the TFS regime. Between 2017 and 2021 waste imports to permitted sites in England sites doubled to 1.1 mt, with notified tonnage almost unchanged.
The largest driver of this growth was ‘edible oil and fat’ at 547kt in 2021 (48% of imports). This has been primarily encouraged by the demand for biofuels and HVO fuels, driven (pun intended) by economic policy on road transport fuels and transport companies looking to reduce their carbon emissions.
But there are other waste tonnages that demonstrate that, while we exported significant tonnage (8.4mt in 2021 from permitted sites in England) we are importing tonnage and could increasingly do so if the right combination of capacity, economics and policy encouraged it.
So, as we deliver increased infrastructure for our own materials in the coming years, should we be thinking about the opportunity to encourage or discourage imports?
EU countries, and others, are already looking to be ‘hubs’ for different activities that suit some of their experience and strategic growth aspirations. They include aviation fuels from plastics and residual wastes, ‘chemical plastics recycling’, and processing of waste electrical goods to provide the ‘virtual mines’ of the future.
All are being considered in the UK to a greater or lesser degree, but is there a more strategic approach to be taken in each of the countries of the UK as to how we deliver a more circular economy? And in deciding this, what should the ‘size of our circle’ be? Can we and should we only focus on our own needs, or should we consider the merits of export and import where it suits our longer-term growth and sustainability objectives?
