Proposed incinerator near Stonehouse?

On Monday one of the meetings I attended was of Green councillors looking at waste in the County - could write for pages on that - indeed many items on this blog - but a crucial issue was the concern that the County maybe going back on it's promise of no incinerator...

Copyrighted photo reprinted here with permission of Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan. See more photos.

I hope this is not true as I am sure there will be mass protest if such a proposal is serious - below is my letter yesterday to the Cabinet member responsible at the County Council - I await with interest - meanwhile Martin Whiteside has sent a letter to local press putting the case against a monster incinerator. The Green party email lists have also been alive with debate - more of that perhaps in another blog and below after this letter....

I note that you are looking at all the options regarding waste for the County - I also note that the Government has not made it easy for Councils - you'll no doubt be aware that Ken Livingstone recently weighed into the debate with a strong case that Labour Ministers are colluding with incinerator operators keen to win lucrative contracts.

I write as I have grave concerns about Glos County Council noises in the press recently about the possibility of Gloucestershire having an incinerator. You will know that many are wholly opposed to this unnecessary and damaging move. Indeed I had thought the idea well and truly buried as I understood Conservatives in the County had promised no incinerator?

It is the view of some waste experts that fines are being used to 'terrify' councillors and others into making a decision for incineration. Correct me if I am wrong but I understand that to meet the Landfill allowance trading scheme (LATS) we need 65% recycling/ composting/ recovery. That means we only need a tiny recovery if you get 50% composting & recycling by 2020. That should be possible - and provide more jobs.

The LATS system has been going for just over 2 years and I understand the report on the 2nd year is due any day. It is only the biodegradable content that counts ie landfill 100 tonnes of mixed household waste and you need 68 tonnes of LATS. If you could take out the 68% that was biodegradable and landfill the 32 tonnes remaining you would need zero LATS. The way to get to LATS is to aim for zero residual waste. You then need a far smaller treatment plant and you need it at a lot later date. It would seem most councils will only need to treat a around 15% of the waste if they meet the governments 50% recycling targets unless they have a large population growth.

Clearly there is an issue around what percentage of waste would be incinerated in any incinerator. However I strongly consider we can do this without resorting to incineration - reducing, recycling and home composting - with a truly decentralised system for dealing with the remainder cleanly and efficiently - as I am sure you are aware the technology is now available for smaller local units such as ‘gas pyrolisis’.

Incinerators, as I am sure you also know, create legally binding disincentives to improving recycling by tying the council into a contract to supply waste for incineration, they produce extra traffic and noise, have 5 times fewer jobs than recycling, have health risks, they destroy valuable resources, produce toxic ash which still has to be land filled and exacerbate climate change because when materials are burned, more fossil fuel energy is used to replace the products through mining, manufacturing, and transportation.

I hope very much that you will be able to choose the sustainable solutions that will bring the most benefits to Gloucestershire and future generations. I would be interested to hear more on your thoughts.

Best wishes, Philip

Cllr. Philip Booth

Most of the latest strategies re waste still are based on waste growth to justify building big burners. Leicestershire for example expects waste to grow 40% over the next 32 years but it
is in fact down 4.5% over the last 2 years. The massive waste growth is over here in Gloucestershire too... Practical maximum levels of recycling may be 70-80% today but the waste facilities have very long contracts. Products will be redesigned if they cannot be recycled as we run out of resources. We need residual waste treatment to sort the residual into fractions which are then treated differently. We need to render the biodegradable fraction inert. Aerobics digestion may well be the best method at the moment. We also needs plant(s) to be adaptable to cope with falling residual waste tonnages. Short contacts are vital to prevent the residual waste treatment forcing the long term production of residual waste.

In 30 years time you should look at 97.5% recycling and 2.5% residual. That means the average material goes though the consumer 40 times (i,e, 1/40th is lost in each pass). The very best extreme recyclers get to that level today.

Want to write more but a Ruscombe Brook Action Group meeting very soon so must gather bits together....