Last month the Andusia team visited the annual World Waste to Energy Summit in London. Now in its 6thyear of business Andusia have historically always worked in the European market, however, there is now an important focus on the growing Energy from Waste market throughout the UK, something Andusia supports and is working hard to help develop.
The outcome of the conference seemed to be that the general opinion across the industry is that a UK energy policy that is connected to a waste policy needs to be embraced. The construction of new Energy from Waste (EfW) plants in the UK is still sporadic at best, and as an important step in the waste hierarchy, the development of new facilities needs to be accelerated.
Recent figures show that RDF export figures have plateaued, although we fully expect RDF exports to continue for 10 years at least. However, even with RDF exports and new EfWs being constructed, as a country we are still producing a huge amount of waste with no other outlet other than landfill. If we don’t embrace a holistic policy for both Energy and Waste together, the UK could find itself falling further behind Europe in the treatment of its waste.