12:10 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)

A green economy means generating renewable energy. We have tough targets for that, with 15% of energy required to be from renewable sources by 2020. We need an energy mix to meet our energy needs and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recovering energy from waste is part of that. Waste can be a renewable source of energy, offsetting the fossil fuels that would otherwise have been burned and reducing methane emissions from landfills. That offers a net climate change benefit. I have not forgotten that this debate is about incinerators, but it is important to emphasise that recovering energy from waste can be achieved by using many different technologies, of which incineration is only one. There is no silver bullet, but incineration is one of the many means available for meeting our renewable energy needs.

To put us on the road to a zero-waste economy, we need to manage all our waste according to the waste hierarchy. The hierarchy involves an environmental order of preference for the outcomes of waste. After the preferable options of preventing, reusing and recycling waste, there is recovery and, finally, landfill—the least desirable environmental outcome. The order of the hierarchy can be changed for individual waste types, if it can be proved that that makes environmental sense over the life-cycle of a product. Generally, however, the hierarchy works, and that means keeping waste out of landfill whenever possible. Gone are the days when we do not worry about putting waste in holes in the ground. We know that biodegradable waste rots in landfill, giving off methane, which is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans made some very good points about the impact on water in aquifers. That is fundamental to our concerns about landfill.

We are doing this not only because it makes sense but because it is the law. The waste hierarchy will shortly become UK law through the revised waste framework directive. We have legal targets to keep waste out of landfill, and the Climate Change Act 2008 rightly sets tough targets for every sector of the economy to contribute to the UK-wide carbon budgets. The waste sector is no exception. All those obligations will help our drive towards growing a zero-waste, green economy.

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