Waste that is not recycled or processed at biomas plants is usually sent to landfills. These enormous dumps are full of mixed waste materials. Some of which will rot away, and some (Such as plastic) which will last forever.

When hazardous materials are sent to landfill there is a risk that the chemicals contained within them can pollute the local area and cause damage to the wider environment.

Toxic chemicals such as paint, glue and creosote is leached from waste wood and other materials in landfill by rain water and ends up being absorbed by the soil. In turn this then pollutes the ground water, waterways and ultimately the food chain.

Because of the lack of oxygen in landfills, waste generally takes much longer to decompose than if it was left to the elements. For example, an un-painted/un-varnished piece of wooden furniture might take between 2 and 3 years to decompose naturally. In a landfill, this can take up to 13 years.

Over the last few years, governments around the world have recognised that landfills are not a sustainable method of disposing of hazardous waste and have been seeking solutions to reduce how much rubbish ends up in landfill.

For domestic waste, the government is investing in technologies such as methane capture plants and recycling stations. But when it comes to commercial waste the burden of responsibility is very much placed on the business owner to dispose of their waste responsibly.

The Environment Agency have put stringent rules in place when it comes to how waste is disposed of. These rules put the responsibility onto the disposer to ensure that their waste ends up being processed by the correct method.

For example, wood that has been classified as hazardous, is no longer allowed to be sent directly to landfill and must now be sent to a licensed processing centre.

Here, the wood can either be recycled, chipped and used to manufacture MDF or chipboard, or shredded and used as fuel at biomas stations where low carbon energy is produced.

Twinwoods Heat and Power is such a biomas plant.  Twinwoods is one of the few places that is licensed to process hazardous wood and uses this to generate electricity.

Find out more here about how your waste wood can be used to generate clean, green electricity.