The Government is planning a PR onslaught to promote the burning of waste, Friends of the Earth revealed today. Leaked Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) documents outline their controversial plans to use celebrity spokespeople to gain public support for incineration [1]. Information obtained by Friends of the Earth indicates that over £2 million pounds of taxpayers' money is planned for the scheme, at a time when DEFRA is cutting budgets in other areas.

DEFRA's plans aim to make it easier for councils to build incinerators by persuading the public that burning residual waste - waste that isn't reused, recycled or composted -is a good thing to do. In reality, the inefficiency of incinerators, and the fact that they divert waste from recycling, means that they are much worse for climate change than other technologies [2]. They are also extremely expensive to build, requiring councils to sign up to at least 25 year-long contracts with massive multinational waste companies, requiring long-term financing through local council tax."

Dr Michael Warhurst, Friends of the Earth Waste Campaigner said:

"The Government is proposing to waste public money burying the dirty truths about incinerators. This "public engagement campaign" is selling outdated, expensive and polluting technology. It comes at a time when DEFRA's budgets are in crisis - it is outrageous that these plans are deemed a priority for spending when other vital work areas are facing cuts.

"If the Government really wants to help the fight against climate change, it should be aiming for much higher recycling rates, and should invest in policies to get waste out of landfill without incineration, which will reduce our climate impacts and increase our resource efficiency [3]."

[1] http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefing_notes/defra_residual_waste.pdf

[2] For more information on the environmental problems of incineration see Friends of the Earth's `Dirty Truths' report and `Up in Smoke' briefing: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/dirty_truths.pdf

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/up_in_smoke.pdf

[3] Briefing on diverting waste from landfill without incineration:

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/lats.pdf