We have had the company of a clean energy consultant, Jenya Khvatsky, over the past couple of months. Jenya was asked to flesh out our sketch of available waste across the UK (see related blog post) using official data.
The report can be viewed Waste Utilisation in the UK. Its conclusions are that the UK disposes of around 59m tonnes of household, commercial and agricultural waste each year, after recycling or composting some 40m tonnes (total therefore being 99m tonnes). This compares with our earlier estimate of 110m tonnes.
It should be stressed that Jenya’s figure of 59m tonnes is the officially recorded amount of waste. Actual amounts produced are certainly higher than this simply because not all waste finds its way either into recycling or into landfill. The ‘true’ figure may be 30% or even 40% higher than this.
