Waste Incineration and the Environment

The study is primarily intended to serve civil society organizations (CSOs), impacted citizens and communities, state and local governments. While this report has been written with a Czech Republic focus following the original country specific version (Jelinek et al., 2023), the technical references and key issues identified here are internationally applicable.

Indeed, many countries rely on the European Best Available Technique (BAT) guidelines (European Commission, 2019) as the basis for their own country specific industrial regulation standards to justify approving incinerator projects. Yet this report highlights the significant failures of these guidelines as experienced by the Czech Republic and many other
European countries. The material reality of the adverse impacts of waste incineration on those communities living close to such facilities, is underscored by this report. As the global south faces a concerted push to establish waste incineration widely, particularly in the Southeast Asian region, where there is little experience with such technologies and industrial regulatory oversight is not assured, the protection of the environment and human health subsequently faces many serious threats.

The potential environmental and human health impacts of waste incinerators can be both complex and severe. While waste incineration may offers some energy benefits, it is important to carefully consider its overall impacts and seek more sustainable alternatives. This study focuses on a detailed analysis of these impacts and aims to contribute to a greater awareness and understanding of these cross-sector and inter-related issues, while protecting our environment and health. In doing so, authors have drawn on their long-term experience and engagement with experts in the field to provide a robust and effective report to assist the public, municipalities and state administrations. Waste and its generation, represents our entire material production systems and reflects back to us those design failures that we must address if we want to truly develop a safe and toxic free Circular Economy. This report adds to the growing body of evidence that waste incineration essentially undermines more sustainable Zero Waste policies and the goal of a Circular Economy.