No. In the past, EfW plants were a significant source of dioxins, but following reductions in emission limits in 1995 and 2000, EfW now accounts for less than 1% of the overall dioxin emissions to the air in the UK. In fact, dioxin emissions from EfW in the UK have changed dramatically, with a 99.8% reduction in dioxin emissions per tonne of waste since 1990. This is due to highly sophisticated flue gas cleaning systems, which is also used in the plant in Plymouth (For further information ).
The findings above are also supported by evidence from countries that have comparable emissions regulations in place, but also have a much higher number of EfW plants compared to the UK. For example, the capacity of EfW plants in Germany increased by 40% between 1990 and 2005 (2005: 21 million tonnes capacity) but dioxin emissions decreased by 99.5% during that time. The contribution of EfW plants to the total dioxin emissions in Germany was 1% in 2004 (compared with 4% from traffic, 26% from residential heating and small furnaces, 8% from power plants and 57% from metallurgical processes (For further information )).