"Energy from Waste Incinerators produce more CO2 than the equivalent gas fired power station"
Incineration
WHY NOT INCINERATE?
We have a major problem with the management of waste in Britain, and Buckinghamshire is no different from any other county; our landfill sites are filling up. Apart from the environmental problems with landfill, we will face increasing costs due to escalating landfill taxes imposed by EU directives over the next 15 years if we continue to landfill at current rates.
According to the Government’s paper Waste Strategy for England 2007, landfill is the least desirable method of managing waste; the next least desirable is thermal treatment with energy recovery (incineration). More desirable are waste prevention, re-use, recycling and composting.
We must accept that a process is required to treat the waste that cannot be re-used, recycled or composted, but incineration is not the only process available.
Incineration suffers from the following problems:
- It requires a very large industrial complex to be economically viable. This costs very significant sums to build.
- An operating company can only make an economic return by operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week over a 25/30 year period.
- If available waste feedstock declines due to increased re-use/recycling/composting, the amount required to feed the incinerator will have to be made up by importing waste from outside the county.
- “Waste miles” are increased when the main disposal vehicle is one large incinerator. A more efficient system, logistically, would be a combination of smaller, more local treatment plants.
- Although the Government states that there are minimal health risks from incineration, doubts have been raised by many health specialists. Why take the risk?
Other countries and other counties in England have come out against incineration. Having examined the pros and cons they have opted for:
- Programmes to increase waste prevention, re-use, recycling and composting; accepting much higher targets than the average UK figure of 27%. Achieving the 50% recycling/composting target by 2010 in the Government guideline RPG9 would see a reduction of the amount of household waste to be managed in Buckinghamshire. Bucks CC are forecasting an increase over this period, indicating that they are not planning to meet this target.
- Treating waste much closer to its' sources with waste management systems like MBT/AD, Click here for details, which do not appear to have the toxicity problems which could endanger local residents' health, and would greatly reduce waste miles.
- Refusing to accept waste from outside their county. This would greatly reduce the waste treatment capacity being contemplated by Bucks CC - Bucks already accepts 70% of all waste exported from London.
Examples of alternative approaches to incineration can be found at the following:
Click here to read about Essex County Council
Click here to read about City of Bath
Click here to read about Norfolk Chooses MBT/AD
Click here to read why Friends of the Earth oppose incineration
Click here to read the paper 'Why not Burn'
Click here to read the Friends of the Earth paper 'Dirty Truths'