Are ERFs better for the environment than landfills? What role do ERFs play in climate change?
Energy Recovery Facilities are recognised in national waste strategies as a sustainable solution; and play a part in the circular economy by generating energy and recovering metals and aggregates for recycling; burying waste in a landfill is not sustainable. When waste is buried in landfills it decomposes and generates methane, a very potent greenhouse gas, which is over 20 times more potent than CO2. ERFs are a net reducer of greenhouse gas emissions because they do not create the methane landfill produces, in addition to offsetting the need to burn fossil fuels in conventional power stations.