Hackney Green councillor takes the helm at North London Waste Authority — as Edmonton incinerator delayed

Cllr Jacob Cable, Hackney’s cabinet member for climate, clean air and transport, has been elected chair of the North London Waste Authority, the body responsible for managing waste and recycling for two million residents across seven boroughs.

The Green Party councillor was chosen by the authority’s members at its annual meeting on Thursday, 25 June. The NLWA is run by 14 elected representatives drawn from Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest. Cllr Madeline Church, a Green from Enfield, and Cllr Peter Zinkin, a Conservative from Barnet, were elected vice-chairs.

“I am honoured to have been elected chair of NLWA,” Cable said. “My objective is to lead NLWA in an open and participatory way and ensure that we work to reduce waste in all its forms.”

He takes over an authority that used the same meeting to approve its annual report for 2025–26 — and one still wrestling with the long-delayed incinerator at the heart of its operations.

By the end of the year, construction of the publicly owned Energy Recovery Facility at Edmonton EcoPark was just over half complete, with around 70 per cent of the specialist equipment ready to be installed. The authority acknowledged “there have been delays” but insisted there was “steady and active progress on the construction site every day”. In the meantime, the NLWA said it had been working with its operating arm, LondonEnergy Ltd, to keep the existing plant running “for longer than originally intended” — a tacit admission that north London will be burning waste at the ageing facility well beyond the timetable once set out.

The Edmonton incinerator, costed at £1.2bn at 2019 prices, has been opposed for years by environmental campaigners, who argue that committing the region to large-scale waste burning for decades undercuts efforts to cut, reuse and recycle.

On the recycling front, the report struck a more confident note. Reuse and recycling rose to 29.7 per cent over the year, with more than 83 per cent of material taken to the authority’s recycling centres recycled, while residual waste fell by more than 22,000 tonnes and none was sent to landfill. Food waste recycling climbed sharply to 27,786 tonnes, which the authority attributed to expanded collections and new national rules requiring separate food waste collection.

A recycling taskforce engaged 30,000 residents in targeted areas to lift recycling rates and cut contamination, and a new four-year, £1m community fund was launched. EcoPark House, an education and community centre on the Edmonton site, welcomed more than 1,000 students in its first year.

Financially, the authority reported spending £93.9m against a £98.5m budget, with the £4.6m underspend earmarked to reduce future costs for the constituent boroughs.

The meeting also marked the first full year of the North London Joint Waste Strategy 2025–2040, adopted by all seven boroughs, which sets targets including halving avoidable food waste, increasing reuse and recycling, and processing all of the region’s recycling within the UK by 2030.