Greenwich burns more of its waste than nearly every other council in England – with Lewisham burning the most of all.
Both councils burn their rubbish at the South East London Combined Heat and Power (SELCHP) plant, next to Millwall’s stadium in South Bermondsey. The plant generates electricity for the National Grid as well as heat for nearby homes.
But burning household rubbish is now the dirtiest way the UK gets its energy, analysis carried out by the BBC earlier this month found.
Greenwich burnt 70 per cent of its waste in 2022-23, up from 58 per cent in 2014-15 – the tenth highest proportion in the country. Lewisham had the largest proportion of all – 80 per cent, but that was down 1 percentage point on 2014-15.
One expert said that burning rubbish was a “disaster” for the environment, with the amount of harmful gases pumped out by the 52 major incinerators rising by 40 per cent between 2019 and last year.
SELCHP came about in the late 1980s when Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark councils started looking at alternatives to landfill. The plant opened in 1993 and is a partnership between Greenwich, Lewisham, the utility company Veolia, the infrastructure giant John Laing and Icon Infrastructure, an investment group. It was upgraded in 1998 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions.
SELCHP now handles 3 per cent of all waste in England, making it the eighth largest facility in the country. As well as Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark, it also burns waste for Bromley and Westminster.
Both Greenwich and Lewisham are jointly contracted to use the plant until 2029.
Concerns over the environmental impact of incinerators have grown over recent years. Earlier this month the BBC found that incinerators were responsible for 14.58 million tonnes of CO2e – a measure of greenhouse gases released by that site as an equivalent of carbon dioxide.
Wales and Scotland have already paused the building of new incinerators, but in England a similar moratorium expired in May.
The Department of Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We are committed to cutting waste and moving to a circular economy so that we re-use, reduce and recycle more resources and help meet our emissions targets. “We are considering the role waste incineration will play as we decarbonise and grow the economy.”
Environmental campaigner and consultant Dr Dominic Hogg said that taxing landfill was leading more councils to incinerate more rubbish: “It looks like a disaster because we’ve looked at it too much as though it’s a power generating facility. The reality is this is a way of disposing of waste. And we should treat it as such. And we should consider emissions in the round and compare it with things like landfill for the stuff that we really cannot do anything better with.
“But we should stop considering these things as power stations, because they’re not good examples of power stations, their principal objective is to get rid and to reduce the volume of waste.”
Ian Williams, the professor of applied environmental science at Southampton University, said the rise of incineration was “insane”.
“We’ve already got more than 45 per cent incineration in most regions of the country, which means we can’t possibly theoretically meet our recycling target the next year and we’re planning to build more incinerators which will take us further and further away from our own targets,” he said.
Current government health advice states that “modern, well run and regulated municipal waste incinerators are not a significant risk to public health. While it is not possible to rule out adverse health effects from these incinerators completely, any potential effect for people living close by is likely to be very small.”
Veolia, which operates SELCHP, told The Greenwich Wire that the plant met or exceeded environmental standards. “SELCHP forms an essential part of the UK’s waste management infrastructure once the options of waste reduction, reuse and recycling have been exhausted,” it said.
“The site supports the National Grid, providing electricity for 48,000 homes and heating for 2,500 via its district heating scheme. Currently the site supports the boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark, Greenwich, Westminter and Bromley. The site operates under a very stringent environmental permit regulated by the Environment Agency.”
Greenwich switched to fortnightly collections of black-topped bins last year in an attempt to cut the amount being incinerated. Lewisham, whose general waste goes in black bins, made the change in 2017 and saw a big jump in recycling rates.
Greenwich Council said: “For several decades we’ve been reducing the amount of waste going to landfill in favour of recycling, as well as working to minimise the amount of waste produced in the borough.
“For waste that cannot be recycled or reused, the most sustainable option is to use incineration, which generates heat and electricity for local homes.
“We’ll continue to work with residents and businesses to reduce the amount of waste sent to incineration by increasing recycling. Over the past two years, the council introduced fortnightly waste collections, leading to a decrease of over 7,000 tonnes of waste being sent for incineration since 2021/22 and an increased recycling rate of 3.8 per cent over the past year.
“As part of the forthcoming municipal waste strategy, further measures will be proposed to reduce incineration and increase recycling.”
Lewisham Council said: “While we are all still creating waste, the council has decided to incinerate it locally. The energy generated is used for social homes nearby and has the potential to serve further neighbouring development in the future.
“Although not without environmental impact, incineration is a better approach than sending waste to landfill, as emissions from landfill contribute more to climate change than CO2 released from incineration.
“SELCHP is in Lewisham, so the refuse crews do not travel as far, costing the council less in fuel and keeping emission as low as possible. However, the council is committed to following scientific advice should the assessment of impacts change.”
Some material in this story was provided by the BBC Shared Data Unit, which works with local media outlets including The Greenwich Wire.
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