Municipal waste as an energy source is in popular discussion today as the Global South struggles with the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
Adding to the stress are projections that the production of plastic, a material made predominantly of fossil fuels, will continue to increase unless stronger commitments are made in the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations.
One of the leading solutions being promoted to the Global South is Waste-to-Energy incineration (WTE), a range of thermal technologies that subject waste to high temperatures.
The outputs of WTE make it a highly appealing option: waste is reduced to about a quarter of its original volume, and electricity or heat is generated in the process.
Several Global South countries are already investing heavily, with India having at least 500 plants, Thailand with 79, Indonesia with 33 and Malaysia with 18.
China, one of the world's leading proponents of WTE, increased the number of facilities from only 67 in 2005 to 1,010 in 2024.
Financial backing for large-scale adoption is robust - from 2021 to 2022, 94% of all international climate finance for methane abatement in solid waste went to WTE investments according to Clinate Policy Initiatives.
Many of these investments were channeled through international financial institutions like the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the largest supporter of WTE in the Asia Pacific region.
According to GAIA's analysis of investments from 2015 to 2025, the ADB funded 40 WTE projects and eight similar waste-burning technologies like advanced recycling of plastics and refuse-derived fuel. This amounted to USD 15.3 billion in total, USD 11.2 billion of which were loans to be repaid.The boom in this industry follows models led by countries like Japan, Singapore, and Sweden. All three are popularly viewed as having the cleanest environments in the world, largely attributing this to their wide adoption of WTE since the latter half of the 20th century.
Despite the perceived benefits, many groups in the Global South strongly oppose it.
The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, NGO Forum on ADB, and hundreds of others are campaigning for the ADB to phase out all support and investments for this technology while the bank undergoes a review of its 2021 energy policy.
Five major reasons are cited by various groups, the first of which is the extremely low amount of energy generated by the WTE process.
Despite having over 350 plants, Japan's WTE industry contributes only about 1% to overall power generation capacity, doing little in helping the country move away from more than 80% reliance on fossil fuels.
Similarly, Sweden's 34 plants provide only 1.8%, while China's 1,010 plants only about 2%.
These figures are projected to be even much lower for other Global South countries whose waste is predominantly composed of biodegradable materials with low combustibility. On average, overall waste generation in developing countries across Southeast Asia and South Asia is 50-70% biodegradable.
Low energy-generating capability is coupled with high investment costs including construction, technology, pollution control systems, maintenance, and operating expenses such as waste transport and tipping fees. All factors considered, WTE is costlier than all other major energy sources except for nuclear.
The second point raised by groups is the creation of toxic by-products by WTE plants, a fact recognized in international conventions ratified by most countries where ADB operates, such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Minamata Convention on Mercury, and the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes.
Waste does not disappear when processed in WTE plants, but is converted into ash, greenhouse gases, air pollution, and wastewater. Of these, ash forms the large bulk of the converted material, containing dioxins, furans, mercury, lead, arsenic, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides that are harmful to human health and the environment.
This ash must be landfilled because of its hazardous waste classification, an ordeal that countries have long struggled with.
A prime example is in Singapore lwhere ash is dumped into the country's only offshore landfill. If plans for new facilities come to fruition, the government says it would also need to invest in additional offshore landfills.
A similar struggle is being experienced in ADB's WTE project in Can Tho Vietnam as there are ongoing challenges managing over 14,000 tons of ash.
Third, the ADB has yet to demonstrate that it is strictly following existing policy restrictions on WTE in its Energy Policy. There are no reports showing how the prioritization of higher options in the waste hierarchy - such as reduction, reuse, and recycling - have been considered before pursuing WTE.
This is evident in projects like in Binh Duang in Vietnam and Canwest in China. Nor were there any baseline assessments of affected livelihoods in the informal recycling sector which is often affected by WTE plants which compete for waste feedstock.
Fourth, WTE presents complex risks for everyone and only benefits entrenched commercial and oligarchic interests.
Large-scale WTE projects, in particular, raise structural concerns: because they rely on a constant stream of waste to remain viable, they risk creating perverse incentives that discourage waste reduction, recycling, and broader circular economy measures.
At the same time, proponents often justify smaller, decentralized WTE units as pragmatic responses to persistent challenges in waste collection and transport, especially in geographically dispersed or infrastructure-limited contexts.
Yet, despite ADB's increasing policy restrictions toward WTE, these competing narratives have prevented consensus among stakeholders. This lack of alignment, evident during the contentious 2021 Energy Policy deliberations, underscores the difficulty of reconciling short-term political and commercial considerations with longer-term sustainability goals.
Finally, continued investments in WTE plants will undermine global ambitions to conserve resources, and increase financial resources for safer, affordable, inclusive, and non debt-inducing options.
As a case in point, an independent evaluation of ADB's WTE project with Shanghai SUS Environment Co in 2024 reported how China's policies towards waste minimization, segregation and recycling has led to plant shutdowns due to lack of feedstock.
In other words, large-scale community-led efforts became so effective that there isn't enough waste for WTE plants.
As a concrete example, the Northeast Dhaka WTE Project in Bangladesh set to begin in 2026, faces serious risks of becoming a stranded asset as its high emissions, uncompetitive electricity costs, and rigid contracts undermine long-term viability.
The USD 100 million WTE plant recently approved by AIIB, is expected to emit over 8.3 million tons of GHG -- more than coal plants -- while charging nearly double the national average for power.
Fixed waste-supply clauses lock Dhaka into incineration, conflicting with zero-waste and recycling policies, while rapidly falling renewable energy costs and tightening climate regulations make future underutilization and financial losses likely. These dynamics expose both investors and the government to stranded asset risks and reputational liabilities.
High-cost and high-risk technologies are not advisable for the Global South which is already bearing the brunt of the triple planetary crisis.
In fact, due to its high material intensity use, the UN Environment Programme does not consider WTE as part of a circular economy, and the European Union has explicitly excluded it from its sustainable finance taxonomy citing its incompatibility with climate goals.
Acknowledging its significant policy and market influence in the region, the ADB would do well in taking a hard stance in phasing out WTE incineration and all forms of waste burning in its amended Energy Policy.
(Brex Arevalo is with the Climate and Anti-Incinerstion Campaign of GAIA Asia Pacific and Rayyan Hasan is executive director of NGO Forum on ADB)