A MOVE by Clackmannanshire Council to burn its municipal waste will not be a long-term solution to the challenges faced by the local authority, its leader has insisted.

With the Scottish Government telling all councils to ban sending its waste to landfill by the end of December 2025, Clackmannanshire is working with surrounding councils – its primary partner Stirling Council, Falkirk, and Perth and Kinross – on finding a solution that could secure access to an Energy Recovery Facility which would see non-recyclable waste burned at high temperatures under carefully controlled conditions.

A joint tender is currently being worked up ahead of an expected contract award in October 2022, and councillors have heard that the waste incineration route appears to be the only “proven, viable and available” technology at this moment in time.  

Environmental groups are opposed to the process, although advocates say the carbon impacts of incinerating municipal waste in Scotland are 27 per cent lower than landfilling the same waste.

With that in mind, Clackmannanshire Council leader Ellen Forson said local authorities had to end the practice of sending biodegradable municipal waste to landfill – but acknowledged the ways to do that were limited. 

But she added: “I would see incineration as a short-to-medium-term solution that allows us to investigate the other options available to us.

“I do think this is a moving feast and every day there are new technologies being developed.

“Scotland’s International Environment Centre will be based right here in Clackmannanshire, and Clackmannanshire can take advantage by piloting some of the solutions that are going to come up in the future.

“We’ll be developing the solutions here that will be adapted worldwide.”

The Scottish Government has committed financial support for the joint procurement exercise which will incorporate the setting up of an expert team of technical, procurement and legal specialists to oversee the production of the joint tender. 

Labour's Dave Clark said many councils appeared to be “like lemmings, looking for the easy solution” when it comes to waste disposal, but reluctantly supported the approach in the absence of other options.

However, he urged colleagues to “be very, very rigorous” when looking at the issue over the coming months and years.

The SNP 's Jane McTaggart also expressed some reservations about waste incineration but weighed that up with the need to stop waste going to landfill within just four years. 

“It’s a challenge we must address but right now this seems to be the only game in town I’m afraid,” she concluded.

Councillors heard that biostabilisation of waste prior to landfill – which sees waste treated by various mechanical and biological processes – had been considered as a possible future treatment.

However, biostabilisation plants across the UK cannot meet the standard to allow treated municipal waste to be landfilled post 2025, so it is a “long-term aim not a short-term feasible possibility”.