Committee seeks public views on new legislation on Environmental Protection and Waste Management.

Deadline 21 September!
An Assembly committee established to scrutinise the Welsh Assembly Government’s proposed legislation on Environmental Protection and Waste Management has launched a public consultation to seek the views of interested parties.

The proposed Order will provide the Assembly with the power to make its own laws, known as Measures, in the field of environmental protection and waste management.

It is among the first of several Government proposed Orders to be scrutinised by the Assembly under powers introduced by the Government of Wales Act 2006. As part of its pre-legislative scrutiny process, the Proposed Environmental Protection and Waste Management LCO Committee will consider the general principles and terms of the proposed Order.

Alun Ffred Jones AM, Chair of the Committee, said: “This committee is among the first to scrutinise proposed Legislative Competence Orders and therefore we have an important task ahead of us. In order to undertake our role effectively, we need to hear the views of as many individuals and organisations as possible. I urge anyone with an interest in this issue to visit our website and make their views known.”

The Committee would welcome views from interested parties on the following questions:

1. Would the terms of the proposed Order allow for the implementation of the policy agenda on waste management and environmental protection by means of Measures? If not, how would the proposed Order need to be re-drafted and why?

2. The proposed Order includes a Table setting out certain exceptions from the scope of Matters 6.1 and 6.2 – see the entries at numbers 1, 2, 12 13, 14 15, 16 and 18. Are these exceptions appropriate? If not, how should they be re-drafted and why?

3. Are the terms of the proposed Order drafted appropriately, too narrowly or too broadly. If necessary how should the proposed Order be re-drafted and why?

Further information on the proposed LCO, the legislative process and how to get involved

The deadline for submitting evidence is 21 September 2007. The Committee welcomes evidence in both English and Welsh. The Committee will consider responses to the written consultation during the autumn term.

Mercury Meadows - Slough is Burning (Toxic Waste)

Row over Viridor Waste Management Incinerator in Exeter

Local authority row over Exeter incinerator - As proposed in Cardiff Viridor Waste Management is Devon's waste management contractor and the company hoping to develop the Exeter incinerator..

17-07-2007
Local authorities in Devon have become embroiled in a row over proposals for a new incinerator in Exeter. Councillors in Exeter are meeting today to discuss their concerns that Devon county council's intention to build an energy-from-waste facility on the Marsh Barton Industrial estate, south of the city……............ In denouncing the project, Cllr Connel Boyle, lead councillor for the environment and leisure raised his concerns about dioxin emissions. The city council has claimed that waste incinerators in the UK account for "80% of dioxin emissions in the UK (from regulated emissions)", and therefore needed to be monitored more closel

Incinerator pollution "would be worse than plutonium"

News from Newhaven....Pollution from the proposed Newhaven incinerator will be worse than the polonium 210 that killed Alexander Litvinenko, it has been claimed.

Retired GP Dr Dick Van Steenis joined Lewes MP Norman Baker last night at a meeting for protesters fighting the 14,000 square metre facility due to open in 2010.Dr Van Steenis, who has advised four parliamentary enquiries on pollution and the environment, said particles emitted from the controversial plant would be "worse than plutonium" and "worse than polonium 210."
By Andy Dickenson

Alternatives to Incineration - The Role of Anaerobic Digestion in Waste Management.

FOE meeting
Monday 16th July at 8.00pm at St. Michael's Centre, 10a Pen-y-Pound, Abergavenny, NP7 5UD, which is behind the Catholic Church. (Pen-y-Pound is the turn off the A40 near to Tesco and very near a traffic-light-controlled pedestrian crossing.) There is parking on the site - but naturally you will all be cycling or skateboarding!

The Role of Anaerobic Digestion in Waste Management.

1. Simple, short presentations by equipment manufacturers covering what Anaerobic Digestion is and its advantages over other ways of dealing with the waste stream. - Greenfinch representative - Reliant Technical Services representative -

2. Waste management and sustainability - Julian Rosser, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru - 5mins.

3. Welsh Assembly Government's (WAG) response to the role of Anaerobic Digestion in the broader context of waste management -

4. The local perspective - Monmouthshire County Council's (MCC) response to the presentations -

Environmental Scrutiny Committee discuss INCINERATOR 10th July 4.30

TUESDAY 10 JULY 2007 AT 4.30 Room 1 County Hall
Venue COMMITTEE ROOM 1, COUNTY HALL, ATLANTIC WHARF,CARDIFF
Membership Councillors Wakefield (Chairperson), Aylwin, Bowen, Derbyshire, James, Lloyd, Michael, Parry and Dianne Rees

EBM 5 July 07 Municipal Residual Waste Treatment Final
procurement of a residual waste treatment facility (Prosiect GwyrddTitle: Environmental

Documents:
Environmental Scrutiny Committee Agenda 10/07/07 (8k)
Outline Regional Transport Plan (9.89M)
Municipal Residual Waste Treatment (271k)
Household Food Waste Collections and Treatment (61k)
Sustainable Development Action Programme (318k)

Prosiect Gwyrdd/ Project Green !!! is an incinerator GREEN - do pigs fly? is snow blue?

– Joint Regional Partnership Proposals for theProcurement of a Sustainable Residual Waste Treatment Solution

ENVIRONMENTAL SCRUTINY COMMITTEE: 10 JULY 2007
The strategy clearly identified a need for a residual waste treatment facility
[that is an INCINERATOR] in order for the targets to be met and for punitive landfill tax and infractionpenalties to be avoided.
There is NO NEED for this facility
The recovery of energy from residual waste that is derived after the separation of recyclable or compostable materials have been removed,this material can then be used for energy recovery through thermal treatment and for further recovery of recyclables;
THERMAL TREATMENT = INCINERATOR!
A Dying Technology
The plan would tie the council into a contract to supply waste for incineration - creating a legally binding disincentive to improving recycling - and discourage further investment in genuinely renewable energy production. Investment in recycling provides five times as many jobs as are displaced from landfill and incineration.

PMG Estates and Viridor Waste Management plan to build an incinerator in Cardiff Bay - Where? Trident Park Cardiff Bay

INCINERATION by another name - Cardiff Council who are you kidding?

Public Suspicious of incineration and misconceptions must be educated - say Cardiff Council

Do you think we will fall for this calling this incinerator Project GREEN - Prosiect Gwyrdd?


Prosiect Gwyrdd/ Project Green – Joint Regional Partnership Proposals for the Procurement of a Sustainable Residual Waste Treatment Solution
20. Currently four South East Wales Council’s Newport City Council,
Monmouthshire County Council, Vale of Glamorgan Council and Cardiff
County Council as Waste Disposal Authorities safely treat and dispose of
approximately 300,000 tonnes of municipal waste each year, with this
tonnage collectively increasing in the recent past by as much as 1.5% per
annum.

A Report of: Environmental Scrutiny Committee Municipal Waste Management Strategy – Residual Waste Treatment Options JUNE 2005
http://archive.cardiff.gov.uk/scrutiny/pdf/Residual%20Waste%20Report.pdf
11. Reducing the volume of waste which is land filled, however this is to be achieved, will require active public support:
· Public support for, and participation in, action to reduce waste arisings and to increase recycling will be required in the short, medium and long term in order to minimise the potential landfill generated;
· Public are likely to be suspicious of some new treatment systems, such as incineration, and must therefore be educated on the environmental realities surrounding waste treatment in order to generate support;

· Any new waste treatment plant is likely to be an industrial scale development necessitating a lengthily, transparent, planning process. Public opposition to a planning application may be greater if there is uncertainty or misconceptions about the plant and the environmental impacts it might have.

Municipal waste management

Why?
to reduce the volume of waste that is land filled but how?
INCINERATOR - high costs -industrial scale - private partners -

Background information
A Report of: Environmental Scrutiny Committee Municipal Waste Management Strategy – Residual Waste Treatment Options JUNE 2005

11. Reducing the volume of waste which is land filled, however this is to be
achieved, will require active public support:
· Public support for, and participation in, action to reduce waste
arisings and to increase recycling will be required in the short,
medium and long term in order to minimise the potential landfill
generated;
· Public are likely to be suspicious of some new treatment systems,
such as incineration, and must therefore be educated on the
environmental realities surrounding waste treatment in order to
generate support;

· Any new waste treatment plant is likely to be an industrial scale
development necessitating a lengthily, transparent, planning
process. Public opposition to a planning application may be greater
if there is uncertainty or misconceptions about the plant and the
environmental impacts it might have.

12. Depending on the treatment process adopted, the capital costs of
building a plant are likely to be in the region of £40-80m. Given this cost,
it is likely that the Council will have to enter into a partnership with the
private sector to finance the project. Equally, the investment is such that
joint working with neighbouring authorities to generate economies of
scale could be highly desirable. If the Council were to adopt this regional
partnership approach, it would be necessary to enter into such
arrangements with clarity of the Council’s objectives and a clear
identification of risks involved and the strategies to manage these risks.
The costs which will fall to the Council will be in inverse proportion to the
risks accepted by the Council.

RECOMMENDATIONS
13. The Executive is recommended to avoid the temptation to rush to a
technical solution but rather to recognise that the eventual solution
arrived at is likely to be heavily influenced by the market, which needs to
be carefully understood. Nonetheless, urgent action is required by the
Executive to protect the Council against the financial penalties that
continued reliance on landfill will involve. To achieve this, the Executive
is recommended to:
R1. Commence structured dialogue with neighbouring authorities to establish the viability for creating a regional waste management facility;
R2. Accurately define, with neighbouring authorities, the “waste problem” to which potential private sector partners will be invited to develop solutions.
R3. Commission Officers to examine potential sources of the capital funding
required to deliver a new waste management facility.
R4. Embark on an expansive education campaign about the need to reduce land filling, and the technologies available to achieve this. Such a campaign would need to address the information needs of all elected Councillors and officers, as well as the general public.
R5. Lobby the Welsh Assembly Government to reclassify the UK definition of RDF (– Residual Waste Treatment) from waste to fuel.

Waste going to landfill’ - each new incinerator requires a nominated hazardous waste site to receive the highly toxic fly ash produced by this technology. The additional sites will require constant and careful monitoring for health and safety reasons.

Who wants to build it?

Waste Guzzling Monster - incinerator - sometimes called a thermal treatment -

PMG Estates and Viridor Waste Management plan to build an incinerator in Cardiff Bay. Rather than just burning the waste that is left over after recycling, with a potential capacity of 500,000 tonnes the incinerator could burn around three times as much rubbish as Cardiff sent to landfill in 2003/4 Between April 2004 and March 2005, 167,022 tonnes of waste were sent to landfill in Cardiff. Waste policy
8 Jun 2007 - They boast and day this is an Opportunity for Cardiff to lead the way in waste and resource management. Welsh property developer PMG Estates Limited, jointly owned by Paul Guy and Mike Hall, has announced exciting plans to create a state-of-the-art waste management and resource recovery facility on its Trident Park site in Cardiff Bay that would place Cardiff at the forefront of waste management practice in the UK. PMG has selected Viridor Waste Management, to be its preferred bidder to take forward the proposals. Over the coming months PMG and Viridor will be drawing up detailed plans for the £150 million scheme
http://www.tridentparkcardiffbay.co.uk/siteplan.htm#
http://www.tridentparkcardiffbay.co.uk/Site_Folder.pdf
http://www.tridentparkcardiffbay.co.uk/

‘TRIDENT PARK, THE HUB OF CARDIFFhttp://www.tridentparkcardiffbay.co.uk/index.htm

Conrtact the directors http://www.pmg-plc.com/
Trident Park website bast that it is a prominent 50 acre site within Cardiff Bay, the vibrant and successful regeneration of Cardiff’s docklands. The park comprises ten existing warehouses and office buildings and three plots suitable for development. Less than ten years old and in excellent condition the site offers one million sq ft of capacity.PMG Estates, through a programme of refurbishment, selective demolition and new development, is creating at Trident Park a business environment that offers a wide range of accommodation to suit the Region’s future office, warehouse and industrial needs.’


MUNICIPAL RESIDUAL WASTE TREATMENT
REPORT OF CORPORATE DIRECTOR 5 July
EBM 5 July 07 Municipal Residual Waste Treatment Final
procurement of a residual waste treatment facility (Prosiect Gwyrdd),. which is in line with the...
www.cardiff.gov.uk/objview.asp?object_id=9017

'The recovery of energy from residual waste that is derived after the separation of recyclable or compostable materials have been removed, this material can then be used for energy recovery through thermal treatment and for further recovery of recyclables;'

Julian Rosser, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru commented,
"Incineration is not the best way of dealing with waste: it means burning paper and plastics that should be recycled. It's not a renewable way of generating energy because so much of the 'fuel' comes from plastics which are made from oil.
. A waste guzzling monster like this would tie us into burning lots of our rubbish for a generation. We need to be reducing the amount of waste we produce, and recycle and compost anything left."

The Green Party is totally opposed to incineration for a variety of reasons, including concerns about the effect on human health and the environment and the way that incinerators create a demand for waste. The Green Party believes in the 'zero waste' philosophy, which involves reducing the amount of waste produced, re-using, repairing and recycling materials and environmentally-friendly treatment of residual waste to recover usable materials and compost organic matter. The most effective way to reduce the amount of waste produced is through government taxes on packaging and tax incentives to encourage re-use schemes and businesses that repair and recycle. However, local councils can and must play their part in working towards zero waste, most notably by ensuring there are comprehensive recycling facilities.