A new study from European research institutes ifeu and Prognos Consulting delivers a clear warning about a threat we can no longer ignore: methane emissions from landfilled waste are putting EU climate goals at risk, writes Siegfried Scholz, President of European Suppliers of Waste-to-Energy Technology (ESWET).
Methane is a climate menace. It traps 80 times more heat than CO₂ over 20 years per tonne emitted and causes roughly one third of current global heating. The gas escapes as organic materials in landfills – whether it’s food scraps, paper, or garden waste- decomposing in oxygen-starved conditions underground. Once buried, these materials release methane for decades.
Even if the EU achieves its ambitious target of landfilling only 10% of municipal waste by 2035, then from the new waste deposited at existing sites alone, cumulative methane emissions will reach 700 million tonnes by 2050. That equates to almost the entire EU’s power sector CO2 emissions in 2022, according to energy think tank Amber. These estimates don’t even take into account the emissions from the millions of tonnes still festering at the sites up to 2022.
The problem is widespread yet impossible to see from the naked eye, as methane is odourless and colourless. Thankfully, new studies based on satellite imagery were able to zoom in on this issue and reveal massive leaks from European landfills. Recent studies show that Madrid alone experienced “super-emitter” events between 2021 and mid-2023, with releases averaging 3-4 tonnes of methane per hour. Those recorded in the Spanish capital weren’t isolated incidents at abandoned sites, but ongoing emissions from long-established landfill sites.
The solution seems straightforward: reduce food waste, boost recycling rates and embrace reuse wherever possible. But the reality is more complicated. Even the most aggressive waste prevention campaigns leave residual biogenic waste such as food scraps, soiled paper, contaminated organics, which cannot be recycled. This unavoidable portion of waste must go somewhere. The question is whether it decomposes in oxygen-starved landfills, releasing methane for decades, or whether residual waste can be disposed of in a better way.
Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technology offers a proven solution. By thermally treating residual waste, it eliminates methane emissions entirely while generating district heating and power for local communities. The process also recovers metals that would otherwise remain buried and lost forever and produces materials like aggregate for construction. Under the EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive, WtE facilities must meet stringent environmental standards which are far stricter than most industrial operations. In the future, carbon capture technology promises to achieve negative emissions when biogenic carbon is sequestered. The UK has just broken ground on the country’s first full-scale carbon capture facility for a WtE site, paving the way for similar solutions on the European continent and beyond.
WtE handles waste that cannot be recycled and will be gaining momentum as it enables Europe to meet its landfill reduction targets. If the EU is determined to landfill less than 10% of it residual waste by 2035, in line with current targets, it will need WtE to handle waste that cannot be prevented, reused, or recycled.
Yet Brussels is now considering a policy that would undermine this solution. The proposed expansion of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) to include WtE plants would require operators to purchase emissions permits for every tonne of CO₂ produced during thermal treatment. As operators raise the gate fee to cover the cost of the permits, the bill would inevitably be passed on to the taxpayer, forcing municipalities across Europe to consider alternative waste management options.
The result is ironic: as Europe aggressively pushes to reduce landfilling, it would simultaneously penalise the very infrastructure – WtE – needed to achieve that goal. This solution also blindly fails to account for the circularity that WtE facilities enable: metal recovery, heat and power generation, aggregate production and the potential for carbon capture and usage that would otherwise be lost. Most critically, the possible expansion of the ETS to WTE plants ignores the methane emissions prevented.
The responses to EU consultations on this matter reveal broad opposition from industry stakeholders who recognise this contradiction. If your objective is keeping methane out of the atmosphere, you cannot simultaneously kneecap the most viable alternative to landfilling residual biogenic waste.
The EU faces a critical choice. It can pursue ideologically pure carbon pricing that inadvertently perpetuates the landfill status quo, or it can recognise that preventing decades of methane leakage justifies controlled thermal treatment of waste, especially when carbon capture technology can render these facilities carbon-negative.
If Europe is serious about its legally binding commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, it must align incentives with outcomes. That means accelerating the phase-out of biogenic waste landfilling, expanding recycling infrastructure, and supporting instead of sabotaging thermal treatment facilities that keep methane out of the atmosphere while recovering valuable resources.
The climate crisis demands a very different approach. Europe should choose solutions that work, not policies that sound good on paper but fail in practice.
