The UK's Waste-to-Value Opportunity

A strategic proposition from KOUYARO International Partners, Barroco Group & New Tech Ideas Inc

The United Kingdom has spent decades improving recycling, waste collection and resource management. Yet the country still generates tens of millions of tonnes of waste every year — and a significant proportion ultimately requires treatment or disposal.

The question facing Britain is no longer simply how we dispose of our waste. The more strategic question is:

How much energy, fuel and economic value are we allowing to leave the economy with it?

The UK waste opportunity at a glance

• 25.9M t

  UK household waste generated, 2023

• 44.6%

  UK household recycling rate

• 11.18M t

  Municipal waste sent to landfill, 2023

• 5.34M t

  Biodegradable municipal waste to landfill

• 32.6M t

  England commercial & industrial waste, 2023

• 40.4M t

  UK commercial & industrial waste, 2020

Source: UK Government / Defra.

From waste problem to energy resource

Not all waste should be converted into energy. That distinction is fundamental. The UK's waste hierarchy prioritises prevention, reuse and recycling. The Government's current Energy National Policy Statement states that energy recovery should primarily address residual waste that cannot reasonably be prevented, reused or recycled, with electricity, heat or fuel recovery maximised from that residual material.

1. 01Prevent
2. 02Reuse
3. 03Recycle
4. 04Recover materials
5. 05Recover energy / produce fuel
6. 06Minimise disposal

This is not about replacing recycling. It is about finding a productive destination for the material that remains after higher-value recovery routes have been exhausted.

The electricity opportunity

Government analysis recognises energy recovery from residual waste through conventional Energy from Waste as well as advanced thermal technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis. For illustration, using an electricity-export benchmark of approximately 0.4–0.8 MWh per tonne of waste, the energy contained in 11.184 million tonnes would represent roughly 4.47–8.95 TWh — approximately 510–1,020 MW of average electrical output if generated evenly across a year.

That is an illustration of the scale of the resource, not a claim that all 11.184 million tonnes are technically or economically suitable for the same technology. Actual output depends upon calorific value, moisture, feedstock composition, plant efficiency, operating availability and whether electricity and/or heat are recovered. Government estimates also anticipate approximately 4.5 million tonnes of additional energy-recovery capacity in England between 2024 and 2035.

The scale of the commercial opportunity

The financial opportunity should not be presented as a single guaranteed number. It is better understood as a portfolio of infrastructure and commodity opportunities. If one million tonnes of suitable residual waste generated approximately 0.4–0.8 MWh per tonne, that is 400,000–800,000 MWh. At an illustrative electricity value of £70/MWh, that represents £28M–£56M of gross electricity value per million tonnes — scaling to £280M–£560M at ten million tonnes and £1.12BN–£2.24BN at forty million tonnes.

These are gross illustrative energy values, not project profits, revenues guaranteed to plant operators, or an investment return. Actual economics would need to account for gate fees, power prices, heat offtake, plant utilisation, financing, construction costs, operating costs, maintenance, grid connection, permitting, taxation and feedstock contracts.

The opportunity is not only electricity

• Energy

  Electricity and heat.

• Fuels

  Liquid and gaseous energy products.

• Industrial materials

  Recovered carbon, metals and other usable outputs.

• Infrastructure

  Long-term waste-treatment and energy-generation assets.

• Local economic activity

  Construction, engineering, logistics, operations and maintenance.

The tyre opportunity

A UK Government project description has previously estimated approximately 450,000 tonnes of used tyres are generated in the UK each year. The Environment Agency has strengthened controls around waste-tyre exports following concerns regarding whether exported tyres were being recovered in an environmentally sound manner, with its 2026 progress update reporting thousands of shipments subject to enhanced verification checks. The opportunity is to recover more value from end-of-life tyres within controlled, compliant UK supply chains.

Depending on the technology, tyre pyrolysis can produce tyre pyrolysis oil, recovered carbon material, steel and process gas. The Environment Agency's June 2026 resource framework establishes conditions under which tyre pyrolysis oil produced from approved waste-tyre feedstocks can meet the end-of-waste test, requiring suitable specifications and an identified refinery feedstock destination.

A 48-tonne-per-day model

Consider a hypothetical facility processing 48 tonnes of waste tyres per day — 17,520 tonnes per year. If a particular technology achieved approximately a 42% oil yield, that would produce around 7,350 tonnes of tyre pyrolysis oil annually, or approximately 20 tonnes per day, alongside recovered carbon and steel streams.

The 42% figure should be treated as a plant-specific illustrative benchmark, not a universal industry yield. Actual yields depend upon tyre composition, feedstock preparation, reactor technology, operating conditions and product specifications.

KOUYARO's role: from technology to deployment

KOUYARO International Partners is positioned as the commercial and strategic bridge connecting the different participants required to turn waste-recovery technology into operating infrastructure. The proposed model is based on specialisation rather than attempting to make one company perform every function.

The commercial flywheel

1. 01

   Waste identification

2. 02

   Technical & commercial assessment

3. 03

   Site / local authority engagement

4. 04

   Feedstock agreement

5. 05

   Technology selection

6. 06

   Project structuring

7. 07

   Capital / financing

8. 08

   Plant deployment

9. 09

   Energy / fuel offtake

10. 10

    Recurring project revenue

11. 11

    Replicate across the UK

The strategic objective is therefore not to develop a single plant. It is to create a repeatable project-development platform.

Why local authorities should care

• Waste management

  Reduce dependence on disposal routes for suitable residual waste.

• Energy

  Generate electricity and potentially heat locally.

• Economic development

  Create construction, engineering, logistics and operational activity.

• Resource security

  Recover materials and energy that would otherwise leave the productive economy.

• Infrastructure

  Create long-term waste and energy assets.

• Control

  Potentially bring more waste treatment within regulated domestic infrastructure.

Why investors should care

Waste infrastructure has a fundamentally different characteristic from many conventional infrastructure opportunities: the feedstock is continuously generated. Homes, businesses, factories and construction projects generate waste every day, and vehicles generate end-of-life tyres. The opportunity is to create infrastructure around recurring material flows, with several potential value streams rather than reliance on electricity sales alone.

• Waste-management / gate revenues
• Electricity
• Heat
• Fuel products
• Recovered materials
• Carbon-related value where applicable
• Long-term offtake agreements

The actual revenue stack will depend upon the project, technology, regulation and contracts.

A UK-wide platform

KOUYARO's longer-term vision is to develop a network of projects rather than treating each opportunity as an isolated transaction: regional residual waste to energy; commercial waste to energy or fuel; end-of-life tyres to tyre-derived products; industrial waste to resource recovery; and regional waste hubs combining energy, fuel and material recovery — then replicating the model across suitable UK regions.

The investment case in one page

The waste statistics are official UK Government figures; the electricity and tyre-processing figures are modelling assumptions or examples and should not be interpreted as guaranteed plant performance.

The bigger picture

Britain does not simply have a waste problem. It has a resource-allocation problem. Every tonne of suitable residual waste sent to disposal represents material that has potentially passed through a supply chain involving collection, transportation, processing and expenditure — yet its embedded energy may remain largely unused.

Prevent what we can. Reuse what we can. Recycle what we can. Recover energy and materials from what remains. And build infrastructure around the resources that would otherwise be lost.

The question is no longer simply what Britain can do with its waste. It is: what value can Britain recover from it?

KOUYARO International Partners acts as an independent commercial consultancy and business introducer. Nothing in this article constitutes investment, legal, tax or financial advice, or a guarantee of financing, supply, plant performance or project outcome. All opportunities remain subject to due diligence, verification, permitting and applicable regulatory compliance.