{"id":750729,"date":"2026-02-08T14:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T14:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750729\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T14:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T14:25:13","slug":"exploding-laughing-gas-hits-uk-energy-from-waste-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/750729\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploding \u2018laughing gas\u2019 hits UK energy-from-waste plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Britons are using so much \u201claughing gas\u201d recreationally that explosions of nitrous oxide containers are increasingly shutting down plants that convert waste into energy.<\/p>\n

The Environmental Services Association warned that the explosions of the canisters were costing the waste management industry tens of millions of pounds a year, with most of the bill passed to local authorities.<\/p>\n

The problem has been exacerbated since legislation passed by parliament in 2023 classed nitrous oxide, or \u201claughing gas\u201d, as a Class C drug and banned possession of the smaller containers, often used to whip cream, without a good reason. <\/p>\n

The ESA, which speaks for the sector, said the change had encouraged a shift to larger canisters of 600-700g. It suspects they are easier to justify possessing to police, even though they could cause larger explosions.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Rule, head of climate and energy policy at the ESA, said: \u201cSince 2023, we have noticed a shift towards larger, more destructive, containers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome plants are now seeing several significant explosions each week and the damage they inflict can cause plants to have to shut down for unplanned repairs, costing operators millions a year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SeveralNitrous oxide cylinders \u00a9 ESA\"AA laughing gas canister that has exploded \u00a9 ESA<\/p>\n

When nitrous oxide containers explode, they puncture holes in furnaces designed to burn tens of thousands of tonnes of waste a year and separate out metals for recycling. <\/p>\n

This sometimes leads to a shutdown of the facility, with unplanned closures triggering substantial additional costs covering start-up fuel, repairs, maintenance and replacement parts.<\/p>\n

The UK has about 60 energy-from-waste power plants, which convert non-recyclable material into electricity, heat and fuel, and are run by companies including Veolia, Suez, Viridor<\/a> and Cory Energy on behalf of local authorities. <\/p>\n

Most are on long-running private finance initiative contracts, meaning they will be handed back to local authorities within the next decade.<\/p>\n

Suez, the French multinational that operates 10 energy-from-waste facilities in Britain,\u00a0said it had dealt with 7,000 nitrous oxide canister explosions across its fleet last year.<\/p>\n

Tim Otley, chief operating officer of energy for Suez recycling and recovery UK, said the explosions were costing about \u00a34.9mn a year in business interruption costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are assets we operate under contracts with local authorities so there is also an impact to the public purse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

David Crawford, plant manager for Cory\u2019s facility in east London, said that last year he had identified about 670,000 canisters in the waste stream, of which approximately 4,000 exploded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want them in our waste streams but currently have no alternative but to process them,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The ESA is pressing the government to introduce tighter restrictions on sales of the canisters and a form of deposit-return scheme or mandatory tracking so the containers can be safely disposed of.<\/p>\n

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs did not comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-750729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}