EU plans to impose emissions costs on waste incineration plants

BRUSSELS: Waste incineration plants in Europe will have to pay for their carbon dioxide emissions under European Union plans to add the industry to the bloc's emissions trading system, EU officials said on Wednesday.

The plans, which aim to incentivise reuse of material, limit waste, and push operators to invest in emission-capturing technology, have met strong opposition ‌from the ⁠industry, which argues ⁠they will unfairly penalise incinerator owners rather than the companies producing non-recyclable plastics.

The proposals are ​part of a European Commission push to revise the EU's main climate policy. Industries covered by ​the EU ETS policy have to buy permits when they emit CO2, a system that creates a financial incentive to emit as little as possible.


The Commission will ​propose adding waste incineration to the ETS, but is ⁠still internally ‌debating the timing, according to three EU officials, who spoke ​on condition ​of anonymity because the plans are not yet final.

"We know ⁠that this is not universally supported in Europe, so we're ​looking at how to introduce this progressively," one official said.

Another ​official said the Commission was assessing 2031 as a potential start date, but that this was still being debated.

Incineration plants burn large volumes of household or industrial waste at very high temperatures, vastly reducing the volume while generating heat that many plants then use to produce electricity.

Waste processing plants - many of ‌which are run by local governments - have denounced the planned CO2 costs.

French utility Veolia, which manages more than 90 waste-to-energy plants worldwide, ​estimates that ​being added to the EU ⁠ETS would inflate municipalities' running costs by €3.8 billion ($4.3 billion).

Veolia policy officer Constance Maillard said municipalities "have no control over the input that is entering into their facility" and ​have to treat the waste regardless of its CO2 emissions potential. "It's a public service," she added.

The officials said the EU proposal will also include a system to monitor landfill emissions, to try to ensure the policy drives an increase in recycling, rather than more waste simply being diverted to landfill sites.