{"id":26570,"date":"2025-07-28T03:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T03:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26570\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T03:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T03:50:12","slug":"europes-big-trash-burning-experiment-has-become-a-dirty-headache-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/26570\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s big trash-burning experiment has become a dirty headache \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Rome, for example, tens of thousands of people signed a petition to stop the mayor from greenlighting a waste incineration project in Santa Palomba. And last March, French senators proposed<\/a> to ban the construction of new waste incinerators in the country.<\/p>\n

The pollution concerns have led the EU to reduce its financial support for waste-to-energy plants and to introduce policy obligations meant to steer EU countries toward recycling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Plant operators insist that technological solutions and proper sorting can keep pollution under control. | Christopher Neundorf\/EPA<\/p>\n

Over the years, Brussels has introduced strict environmental conditions that projects must meet to receive EU funding. This has significantly reduced the amount of public funds allocated to waste incineration compared to larger sums earmarked for greener projects such as recycling plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back in 2020, the technology\u2019s carbon footprint was ultimately what prompted Brussels to exclude waste-to-energy plants from its list of eligible green projects. The list, called the EU taxonomy, tells investors what counts as a sustainable investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local governments are stuck, environmental NGOs argue<\/a>, with many still paying off the debt they accrued when agreeing to build the sites. \u201cMany of these installation plans would turn out to be obsolete,\u201d says Anelia Stefanova, energy transformation area leader for CEE Bankwatch, since EU countries are expected to meet waste reduction and recycling targets enforced by EU laws.<\/p>\n

Stranded assets<\/p>\n

As countries move toward greener waste management systems, the risk is that these large infrastructure projects could become useless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Rome, for example, tens of thousands of people signed a petition to stop the mayor from greenlighting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,5471,19220,11809,10830,11758,2973,2458,6693,19161,2572,75,25794,25795,8666,18466,4217,5474,25796,7096,25797,16453,5427,10839,6348,20664,3810,8146,337,25798,128,2020,25799,105,4931,11814],"class_list":["post-26570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bonds","tag-carbon","tag-circular-economy","tag-companies","tag-construction","tag-courts","tag-data","tag-denmark","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-feed","tag-footprint","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-imports","tag-infrastructure","tag-investment","tag-mayors","tag-ngos","tag-overcapacity","tag-plastics","tag-poland","tag-policy","tag-pollution","tag-produce","tag-recycling","tag-renewable-energy","tag-research","tag-rights","tag-science","tag-spain","tag-taxonomy","tag-technology","tag-waste","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}