Bending the Line – What does it mean, and why should we do it?

Much of the conversation around the circular economy focuses on the environmental and economic utopia of a 100% circular model where there is no waste – with little acknowledgement of the decades-long and vastly expensive journey required to get there or that we’ll still be creating waste until then.

Currently, UK waste handlers should be focused on bending the line—that is, finding ways to move from a linear model of take, make, waste and unlocking the value of waste streams with untapped potential, including non-recyclable waste.

With the UK government’s pledge to halve the amount of biodegradable waste that goes to landfill by 2042, rising landfill taxes and the decision to bring low-level incineration under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 2028 (which will see more significant costs for waste handlers and their customers), urgent change is needed. Waste handlers must reduce their reliance on traditional waste disposal methods such as landfill and disposal, stabilise their costs and give their customers access to greater waste innovation and sustainability gains.

So, what does bending the line mean in practice?

Bending the line means focusing on incremental improvements and, crucially, acknowledging that we must do more with the waste we have right now.

For businesses like ours, equipped with technology that can quickly transform waste once deemed worthless into a valuable commodity as Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), bending the line is an essential message. It helps to educate waste handlers that alternative waste disposal methods are proven, affordable and readily available and that non-recyclable waste isn’t at the end of its life. It helps us highlight that more can be done to extract value from this waste stream – reducing waste handlers’ and creators’ costs and assisting other industries to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels dramatically.

The incentives for turning non-recyclable waste into fuel

Historically, small and mid-sized waste handlers have been priced out of this market because they didn’t have the consistency, quality, or quantity of waste required by offtakers. Now that our on-site biotechnology solution removes those barriers, the incentives for waste handlers to turn non-recyclable waste into SRF are significant.

Waste handlers can:

• Divert 100% of non-recyclable waste from landfill and low-level incineration (which are subject to increasing taxes and legislative pressure) by accessing new offtake routes
• Lower their GHG emissions by over 70% [1]
• Meet the growing demand for SRF from large-scale heavy industries such as cement production.

These industries use this coal alternative to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, decarbonise, and lower their ETS taxes.

Moving to a circular economy won’t happen overnight; it requires significant time and investment, not to mention vast new infrastructure, collective political will, input from the public and private sectors and widespread behavioural change.

But we can make changes now. By extracting greater value from the waste we are still creating, we can start to bend the line, moving away from a linear ethos and walking towards a more circular economy. We can’t afford to ignore the value in non-recyclable waste.

To learn more about our biotechnology and SRF, read our report titled ‘Bending the Line: SRF and the Path to a Circular Economy’.