Southwest Environmental Limited

Rules for Small Incinerators in UK

Rules for small incinerators in the UK are always changing, following our departure from the EU in 2021 they will likely change again. This is a brief review of rules as of February 2021, we are making this review as part of a feasibility study for a project. This page is not an exhaustive review of legal framework, and you should make you own investigations to validate information on this page.

Burning Waste

With the exception of burring garden waste you cannot burn waste in a fire in the UK, and even then you cannot cause "nuisance or pollution"; which is pretty generic, and leaves Environmental Health Officers and Environment Agency Officers to enforce on virtually any type of waste burning.

So how do you burn waste legally? It will have to be scientifically done, and with the correct paperwork to back it up. This will take months to arrange, so if you are looking for a short term solution . . .  this is not for you.

Small Incinerators

A "small" incinerator is a term that we have made up for this web page. But we are describing the type of incinerator a company might have for burning their own waste produced on site, and burnt to recover heat, burning less than 3 tonnes per hour. Which is quite a lot!

This type of small incinerator is called as a SWIP. Your will need a Part A(2) environmental permit from their local authority.

Part A(2) Permit

 This type of permit costs about £3500 to apply for, and £1400 a year thereafter. So you need to do some maths before you start to check this will save you money.

These application fees pale in significance next to hardware costs, which dependent of the type of waste you are burning can be very expensive, both in terms of capital outlay and ongoing costs.

Your System

If we focus on waste wood from now on as an example, then we might envisage using a piece of equipment similar to a large wood burning stove which we could load with our waste, ignite it and . . . well that would be it. Job done.

In reality this kind of system will not pass muster, for various reasons, mostly to do why & how an incinerator is built, which is [a] to get as much heat from waste as possible [b] minimise emissions.

• Primary and Secondary Combustion
• Air Control (for both stages)
• Cleaning of flue gases
• Addtional heat and or fuel for both stages
• Cleaning of flue gases

For more information on these factors please see how an incinerator is built or incinerator abatement.

In general the combustion chambers within an incinerator need to get hot very quickly, stay very hot the whole time they re burning waste, and the flu gases will still need to be cleaned to meet limit set in your permit.

A common problem with many waste burners that are sold as "part B compliant" of similar is that they create a lot of smoke whilst they are getting up to temperature, and as new waste is added additional smoke is created.

Conclusions

So although in practice burning waste in a small incinerator is a simple concept, it is hard to set up because of the rules and regulations that are in place.

Further Reading on this Subject

Incinerator Abatement

How to Build an Incinerator

Incineration of Waste in the UK