On the climate-optimal use of waste : comparing Energy-from-Waste with CCS (WECCS) with Waste-derived Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in the UK Context

Residual waste is no longer just ‘trash’ in the UK – it is a strategic climate resource. This new OIES study shows why policymakers and industry leaders need to rethink where it goes. The paper compares two competing pathways: using waste in Energy-from-Waste plants with carbon capture (WECCS), which can deliver durable, net-negative emissions by capturing and permanently storing biogenic CO₂; and converting waste into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which helps decarbonize a hard-to-abate sector by displacing fossil jet fuel. Both routes offer climate value, but not equally, and not simultaneously. WECCS consistently delivers the larger climate payoff because it permanently removes carbon from the atmosphere, while SAF offers important but more modest benefits through fossil-fuel substitution and material recovery. With finite waste available, the UK risks policy incoherence if separate incentives push waste in opposite directions. The study advocates for treating waste as a climate asset. Coordinated policy could unlock a domestic carbon-removal industry on one side and a growing green-fuels market on the other. The opportunity is real, the stakes are high, and the choices made now can shape the UK’s climate credibility and clean-tech economy for decades.