UK's PFAS Incineration Capacity Review: Fire Safety Implications
The Environment Agency's incineration review and Defra's PFAS Plan put firefighting foams at the centre of the UK's forever-chemicals problem, with only two licensed incinerators and a disposal backlog that is set to grow.
INFIRISK Team·4 min read·
The United Kingdom has finally moved from talking about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the so-called 'forever chemicals', to planning how to destroy them. Two documents sit at the centre of the story: the Environment Agency's rapid evidence assessment of PFAS incineration, published in September 2025, and Defra's PFAS Plan: building a safer future together, updated on 3 February 2026. For fire safety professionals the stakes are immediate, because firefighting foams are one of the largest legacy sources of PFAS in UK hands, and the infrastructure needed to dispose of them is, by every independent account, still too small.
What the Environment Agency found
The Environment Agency's assessment concluded that high-temperature incineration remains the only proven technique for destroying PFAS at meaningful scale. At 1,100 degrees Celsius with a residence time of 2 to 3 seconds, adequate turbulence and balanced stoichiometry, incinerators can reach destruction and removal efficiencies above 99.99 per cent. Operate below those conditions and the risk shifts from residual PFAS to the formation of products of incomplete combustion, including potent fluorinated greenhouse gases.
The report also assessed emerging alternatives, including supercritical water oxidation, hydrothermal alkaline treatment, mechanochemical degradation, plasma treatment, electrochemical oxidation and pyrolysis. The verdict was consistent: promising, but none are yet proven at the volumes the UK will need, and most remain at pilot or laboratory scale.
The capacity bottleneck
The headline problem is simple. Only two UK hazardous waste incinerators are currently permitted to accept PFAS foam waste. Andy Spence, Joint Managing Director of Britannia Fire, made that point directly to the Environmental Audit Committee on 26 June 2025, warning that 'with only two UK-approved facilities able to incinerate PFAS foam waste, backlogs are growing and will only get worse.' His full statement to the committee set out the practical consequences for manufacturers, service providers and end users across the fire safety estate.
The pressure comes from several directions. Servicing contracts are surfacing foam-filled extinguishers that can no longer be refilled with PFAS products. End-of-life units cannot be recycled, because the shell is contaminated. Insurance and procurement teams are starting to specify PFAS-free equipment, which accelerates replacement cycles faster than the waste infrastructure can absorb. Industry bodies have called for urgent action to streamline disposal, including practical measures such as extracting the water fraction from foam concentrate before incineration, which reduces the volume that has to be processed by the limited hazardous waste network.
The regulatory timeline
Defra's plan confirmed that the UK will pursue a UK REACH restriction on PFAS in firefighting foams rather than accepting the EU regime by default. The Health and Safety Executive ran a public consultation that closed in February 2026 and is expected to deliver its final opinion later this year, with a ministerial decision from Defra and the devolved governments anticipated in 2027. The European Union's own phase-out deadline for PFAS in firefighting foams sits at 2030, which gives UK professionals a useful outer marker for their own transition planning.
Two things follow for anyone planning an estate strategy today. First, the direction of travel is not in doubt. Second, the tight UK incineration capacity, the HSE opinion later in 2026 and the expected ministerial decision in 2027 together mean that procurement and disposal costs are very likely to climb before they settle.
The review does not require duty holders to change their extinguishers overnight, but it does shift the calculus. A few practical steps are worth taking in the next service cycle.
Audit the extinguisher estate and any foam stocks against the ingredients list. Any product containing fluorosurfactants should be flagged for phased replacement, with chain-of-custody documentation retained.
Build expected PFAS disposal costs into service budgets from now through 2028, particularly for large portfolios such as care homes, schools, industrial sites and commercial landlords.
When replacing extinguishers, specify fluorine-free alternatives such as water-mist, training-foam, or dry-powder products that meet the same performance standards. Several UK manufacturers now offer PFAS-free lines, so this is a specification question rather than a supply problem.
Keep documentation. Proof of compliant disposal, via a licensed incinerator chain of custody, is likely to become part of routine fire risk assessment paper trails under a UK REACH restriction.
The Environment Agency's review is, in effect, an admission that the UK cannot destroy what it has produced at the pace it wants to phase it out. The Defra plan sets the direction, but infrastructure follows policy with a lag. For fire safety professionals that lag is not theoretical. It is the cost line in the service invoice, the lead time on a replacement order, and the question a client will eventually ask: what are we still storing, and when will it be gone?
