Rubbish Cabinet

Well a Cabinet meeting looking at waste was on Thursday night - two presentations - Friends of the Earth and County Council...

Photo: Advert for Veolia in The Ecologist magazine - who have the contract with SDC

....the deadline for questions took us a little by surprise - Greens were the only ones to submit questions which were read out by others at the meeting - a little strange as I was expecting to ask my own question - anyhow they are below - I was also expecting to be able to ask more questions and had several prepared - however no one got the chance except Cabinet members - the Cabinet meeting will be on the webcast soon here - you can see the answers - not so satisfactory as the whole process is biased towards big incinerators...

One key issue unanswered is why in future tendering exercises, rather than leaving the choice of technology to the bidders, would it not be more proactive of the County Council to indicate, and seek bids for, the technologies which it would prefer? This could encourage more modern and flexible solutions bearing in mind that bidders may tend to suggest mature technologies which they see as financially safe. Anyhow lots more of this another time - but also see various previous blogs which cover this issue in lots of depth including our fears that Stonehouse looks set for a big incinerator....

Photo: Jackdaws

Also at Cabinet the SDC Independent Climate Change Panel's response, the highly controversial knocking down of properties in places like Highfield Road to 'realise assets', the Forward Plan and more...suggest the webcast if interested or happy to talk if individual queries re any of the topics...

1. What residual waste treatment tonnage is the County Council planning for during the period 2015 - 2040?

2. Would the County Council be prepared to lobby the Government to support a level financing playing field for a scheme involving a number of distributed residual waste treatment and energy recovery facilities compared to a single mass burn incinerator?

3. A distributed scheme, involving more modern technologies, some of which are more common in Europe, may be a more environmentally sound and flexible approach to Gloucestershire's waste disposal needs. Such a scheme may also be more acceptable to the general public. Will the County Council take any positive steps to enable such a scheme to be developed through the waste management planning and tendering process.