Allowing climate-damaging emissions from incinerators to go untaxed is ‘shameful’ according to environmental campaigner
Companies running waste incinerators, including Viridor, the operators of the polluting Beddington Lane incinerator, dodged more than £500million of pollution charges for burning plastic last year because of a “loophole” in government policy.
Dirty protest: Sutton Council has ignored all objections to allowing Viridor to run their polluting incinerator at Beddington
That’s according to a report from the Open Democracy website.
Viridor was the biggest beneficiary of the legislative loophole, which saw them avoid any requirement to buy pollution permits under the government’s Emissions Trading Scheme.
Viridor, a subsidiary of US-based global investment firm KKR, made profits of £222million for the last year for which figures are publicly available.
Under a 25-year contract to burn rubbish at Beddington for the South London Waste Partnership, which includes Croydon Council, Sutton, Merton and Kingston, Viridor are expected to be paid £1billion.
Yet according to Open Democracy analysis, Viridor was exempted from more than £73million in pollution permit charges, based on reports the company submitted to the Environment Agency.
Beddington also breached the legal limit for emissions of carbon monoxide and other noxious chemicals eight times last year, as Inside Croydon has reported.
Hydrogen chloride is the chemical normally used in the production of potentially deadly hydrochloric acid.
As well as Viridor, other operators allowed to avoid payments for emissions from burning plastic include Veolia and Suez.
Open Democracy says it has obtained documents which show that a waste industry trade group, the Environmental Services Association, is lobbying the government to allow its members to keep burning plastic without paying for the pollution for at least five more years.
Delaying the introduction for another five years would save the waste industry approximately £2.5billion. The polluting companies are threatening to pass any increase in environment taxes on to their customers – mostly local councils such as Croydon and Sutton
The government’s Emissions Trading Scheme requires companies to buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit.
The scheme is based on the principle of “polluter pays”, incentivising greener alternatives. But it doesn’t apply to incinerators that burn household waste to make electricity because their primary purpose is waste management – not electricity generation.
Open Democracy has found some Energy from Waste incinerators produce more CO2 per unit of electricity generated than coal-fired power plants, yet still claim to be “renewable”.
In 2022, incinerators emitted 7million tonnes of fossil-based CO2, which was almost entirely due to the burning of plastic.
Toxic: the polluting Viridor incinerator at Beddington Lane
The average price of a single pollution permit that year was £79.20. Open Democracy says: “Companies would have spent around £554million if plastic-based incinerator emissions had been covered.”
One anti-pollution campaigner called the loophole “shameful”.
Shlomo Dowen, the national coordinator for the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network said, “The public are unfairly subsiding incineration by paying the cost that should be borne by those profiting from the pollution.
“Inclusion of incineration in the UK ETS would be a welcome start to addressing this injustice.
“The current loophole that allows climate-damaging emissions from incinerators to continue to go untaxed is shameful.”
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