This is a guest article written by Mariel Vilella, Director Global Climate Program at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, which supports local environmental justice efforts around the world to end waste pollution and implement regenerative zero waste solutions.
Around the world, momentum is growing to tackle the waste crisis in ways that also confront climate change, protect health, and strengthen local economies. This shift reflects a simple truth: the future of waste is not burning, it is prevention, reuse, recycling, and composting.
Recent reporting by the BBC described waste incineration as the dirtiest form of energy generation in the United Kingdom, reinforcing long-standing scientific and community concerns. Far from being a clean solution, waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration accelerates climate pollution, destroys valuable resources, and locks cities into outdated systems just when a circular, low-carbon transition is most urgent.
Burning waste drives the climate crisis
Incinerators convert nearly all carbon in discarded materials directly into CO₂, releasing it immediately into the atmosphere. Plastics, derived from fossil fuels, are especially harmful: burning one metric ton of plastic waste produces about 1.43 metric tons of CO₂-equivalent, even when energy is recovered.
Rather than reducing emissions, WTE reinforces the same linear model responsible for environmental breakdown, resource extraction, overproduction, and overconsumption. It delays the systemic change required to meet global climate goals.
The WTE incineration industry often portrays criticism of their facilities as emotional or ideological rather than science-based. This is an old-fashioned tactic to undermine the real concerns people have and the growing body of scientific evidence showing just how problematic burning waste is.
Incineration plant converts the waste into ash, flue gas and heat. Source: Trish Walker/Flickr
Lock-in that blocks the circular economy
Large incinerators require enormous and continuous waste streams, often 100,000 tonnes or more every year for decades, to remain financially viable. The United Nations Environment Programme warns that such investments can create long-term lock-in, discouraging waste prevention, reuse, and recycling while even pushing municipalities to import waste to keep facilities running.
Several high-income regions that heavily invested in incineration, across Europe and parts of Asia—now face overcapacity, stranded assets, and slowed progress toward resource efficiency, often so-called circularity. These experiences show that burning waste is not a bridge to sustainability, but a barrier.
Toxic pollution and hidden costs
Incineration does not eliminate waste, it transforms it into toxic air pollution and hazardous ash. Between 25% and 30% of burned material remains as contaminated residues that must be landfilled under strict controls. Monitoring near incinerators has revealed dangerous dioxin contamination in soil, vegetation, and food sources, with public health authorities in parts of France warning residents not to consume locally produced eggs due to toxic exposure.
These burdens fall disproportionately on marginalized communities, raising profound environmental justice concerns. For example, in the UK, waste incinerators are three times as likely to be located in the most deprived and ethnically diverse areas, raising fears about air quality and the health of vulnerable people. This pattern is not unique to the UK; around the world, wealthier neighborhoods rarely have incinerators at their doorstep, while poorer communities bear the brunt of the pollution and risks.
Expensive energy that wastes resources
Despite being framed as energy infrastructure, WTE is inefficient and costly:
- Electricity generation efficiency typically reaches only 20–30%, meaning it produces power at less than half the efficiency of coal-fired and modern natural gas power plants.
- Incinerators contribute around 1% of Europe’s total energy demand.
- Valuable materials, and the energy embedded in producing them, are permanently destroyed.
In many lower-income countries (e.g. Ethiopia), high organic moisture content makes incineration technically unreliable, leading to failed or underperforming projects. Far cheaper and more effective climate solutions already exist.
A just transition means choosing zero waste
A truly sustainable waste and climate strategy must also deliver a just transition. In contrast to that, waste-to-energy incineration displaces the livelihoods of waste pickers and recycling workers, especially across the Global South, where millions depend on materials recovery for income, but also in the Global North, where reuse, repair, and recycling create far more employment than disposal.
By destroying recyclable materials and centralizing waste management, incineration replaces many community-based jobs with fewer capital-intensive roles. Zero waste systems do the opposite, expanding dignified work in collection, sorting, composting, reuse, and recycling while strengthening local economies and delivering rapid climate benefits.
This is why movements led by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and Zero Waste Europe are calling for:
- An end to new incineration projects
- Accountability for the toxic impacts of existing facilities
- Public investment in prevention, reuse, and recycling
- Policies that prioritize zero waste solutions and just transition for workers’ rights
Our campaigns and research make clear that burning waste undermines climate action, public health, and economic justice, while zero waste delivers benefits across all three.
Free plough on landfill site image, public domain CC0 photo. Photo: rawpixel.com
The global shift is already underway
Governments, cities, and communities are increasingly moving beyond incineration toward circular, low-carbon waste systems. Financial frameworks in Europe are withdrawing sustainability recognition from waste burning, while zero waste cities worldwide are demonstrating faster emissions cuts, more jobs, and healthier neighborhoods without destroying resources.
The path forward
Waste-to-energy incineration belongs to the past. Zero waste belongs to the future.
Choosing zero waste means:
- Cutting climate pollution quickly
- Protecting communities from toxic exposure
- Creating far more jobs and fairer livelihoods
- Breaking the cycle of extraction and waste
Most importantly, it ensures the transition to a low-carbon world is just, inclusive, and truly sustainable.
The solution is already in our hands.