Incinerators

Of the 7,000 incinerators in England and Wales :

• 12 burn municipal waste
• some 60 burn wastes including chemicals, clinical waste and sewage sludge
• over 10 are cement kilns or power stations co-incinerating waste
• over 3,000 burn wood
• about 1,700 burn waste oil
• some 3,000 are small farm incinerators.

Municipal waste is increasing by 2.3% per year and most of this is disposed of to landfill. However, waste will have to be diverted away from landfill to comply with the requirements of the EU Landfill Directive. Even if the Government's targets to recycle more municipal waste are met (35% by 2010), the need for alternative outlets such as incineration will increase. The current capacity for municipal waste incineration is 2.8 million tonnes per year, less than 10% of the waste produced. The capacity of incinerators and the number of incinerators are increasing slowly; however, the amount of waste that needs to be incinerated or recovered may reach 10 million tonnes by 2010.