The UK produces over 27 million tonnes of household waste every year.  Our desire for new things, has increasingly added to the waste mountain which we produce, but too often are completely unaware of.  Did you know that the average person can produce about half a tonne of waste a year?

New laws from Europe, have now encouraged us to think carefully about the way we manage our waste in order to save the environment.  We can of course, all play a part in reducing the waste we create by reusing things and not buying new when we don’t need to in the first place.

Most of our councils are aiming to recycle up to half of all our waste and many have made good progress in helping us to recycle more by giving us door-to-door collections for garden waste and other recyclable materials such as paper, cans, glass and plastic.  

But how can we use the rest of the waste, which is not so easy to recycle?  Well, we can recover the energy in the waste to create heat and electricity by using waste-to-energy plants. What do you think about recovering energy from waste?

In the past, using waste-to-energy systems have not always been a popular option with some people, but new technologies and thinking are making waste-to-energy plants a more pleasing way to help our communities live within the limits of our environment.  

But how can we make sure that decisions made regarding waste-to-energy are the best for our communities.  Well, naturally, we want to identify locations for building them that are acceptable to local people, we need to identify and compare the best and cleanest technologies, and we need to decide which size (or sizes) of plant is right.  

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