Why develop incinerators? Don’t they cause pollution and harm to health?
As well as recovering value from waste collected from households that cannot be recycled or composted, incinerators with energy recovery achieve a substantial reduction in the amount of waste that remains to be disposed (as residues). The EU Landfill Directive places an obligation on member states to reduce disposal of waste to land, and with due allowance for meeting (or even exceeding) recycling targets, this can only be achieved by diverting the remaining waste to other methods of treatment such as ERF. Modern incinerators can only operate in accordance with strict pollution and emission controls enforced by the Environment Agency. These standards are prescribed by the EU Directive on Waste Incineration. Much of the controversy about the health impact of incinerators is derived from studies of old plants, which were subsequently closed as a result of tougher standards. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that modern incinerators are potentially hazardous to the environment or
