Zero Waste incinerater policy greenwash

 What Jane Davisdson Greenwash report TOWARDS ZERO WASTE doesn't say!

 Incinerators produce TOXIC ash which report fails to mention so where is that going?

Q what is the risk of choosing Viridor-type incineration, if incinerator bottom ash is found to be hazardous waste

HELP WALES reduce its carbon footprint  the report shouts - impossible if you build incineraotrs! You simply add to it! But you can get around that by not counting these emissions! But that may change in the future!  

Q what is the risk if CO2 from incineration is counted (it isn't at the moment) as adding to the carbon-footprint of 'waste management/disposal', as needed to conform with the EU ETS scheme, whereby the waste sector has to reduce CO2 equiv emissions by 16% (2020 levels compared with 2005)?

 Q Myth recycling bottom ash?

and Jane Davidson proposes that the recycling of EfW residue bottom ashwill be included as counting towards recycling targets!!

TOXIC WASTE It is a Myth that an incinerator turns rubbish into nothing! for example The Viridor incinerator just given planning permsission in Cardiff  will produce around 120,000 tonnes of waste ash per year!
for some of this bottom ash it is assumed, will find a use in the road building and construction – hence, they classify this waste as 'recycling'. However, at present, only half of the bottom ash produced by incinerators finds a market with the rest being landfilled. One third of waste will become ASH. 17,500 plus  tonnes of that will be toxic and need special hazardous waste disposal.
What do we do with the 17,500 tonnes plus of hazardous toxic ash?
They expect to send it to England at great cost to dumps with huge local opposition. This is Non compliant with TAN 21 concerning minimisation of transport movements and the Proximity Principle *(should be disposed close to the point at which it is generated 

 Q Increasing incineration!!!

recycling target for individual Local Authorities is 58 per cent for 2015-16,

Now 42 per cent of municipal waste can be sent to incineration!counted as being subjected to energy recovery. Plans for a 30% cap on municipal waste shelved? With increased recycling building big burners is shortsighted and will lead to a reluctance by councils to increase recycling rates.

 Incineration is quite simply the wrong option environmentally. The climate change impact of a mass burn incinerator is far greater than many other technologies, including mechanical and biological treatment.

Greenhouse gases - ultra fine particles and dioxins
Incinerators have the highest emissions of harmful substances compared with other waste management options. It produces of poisonous dioxins -An incinerator of this sort has toxic emissions, particularly ultrafine particles (nanoparticles) Incinerators emit varying levels of heavy metals such as vanadium, manganese, chromium, nickel, arsenic, mercury, lead, and cadmium, which can be toxic at very minute levels.

Cheaper alternatives

 Alternative technologies are available or in development such as Mechanical Biological Treatment, Anaerobic Digestion (MBT/AD), Autoclaving or Mechanical Heat Treatment (MHT) using steam or plasma arc gasification PGP, or combinations of these treatments. Erection of incinerators block out the development and introduction of other emerging technologies. A UK government WRAP report, August 2008 found that in the UK median incinerator costs per ton were generally higher than those for MBT treatments by £18 per metric ton; and £27 per metric ton most for modern (post 2000) incinerators.

Costs compared for waste treatment options". letsrecycle.com. 15 August 2008. http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=10309.

WAG energy from waste con

The welsh assembly gov and local councils under pressure to reduce landfill are
opting for incineration of waste under the pretext that they can make
electricity from the process! 

This is Waste incineration disguised as 'renewable energy'!!

Wwe know the electricity from one of these large incinerators is pretty small, 20 or 30MW, compared with normal power stations (several 100MW up to Aberthaw’s 1450MW) and produces toxic ash and air pollution.They set no requirement on energy efficiency, despite Welsh strategy on 60% minimum.

Can WAG justify, a guarantee of £9 million per year to this waste incineration project while 

telling us they are GREEN? 
Can  Jane Davidson justify an INCREASE incineration to 30%!!!  

Various mechanical and bio-treatments (MBT) are roughly half the cost of incinerators, but WAG’s officials were so set on incineration that they approved the £9 million/year despite adopted policy to minimise waste disposal by landfill and incineration.

Prosiect Gwyrdd is NOT  Green! The partnership is not to "recycle and compost" but to dispose of the "residuals" by unwanted incinerators at huge cost.  

Shift away from EfW incinerators

Four planned energy from waste (EfW) incinerators are to be reviewed pending decisions on whether they will go ahead at all, pointing towards a shift away from incineration as a method of waste treatment.

Spiralling costs and a dramatic reduction in residual waste arisings have put a question mark over the plans to build EfW facilities in Hull, Coventry and Leeds.

The planning committee of Bristol City Council has made a decision to block an application for a 350,000 tonne a year energy-from-waste (EfW) facility proposed by Viridor.

Targets 

False to say no policy change from Wise About Waste, which said minimise disposal to landfill and incineration. This plan says reduce landfill to 5% and expand incineration up to a level of 30% - it's dishonest of WAG to pretend no policy change. 

Targets set by the Welsh Assembly Government which is to recycle 52% of our waste by 2012-2013 - just not ambitious enough to claim they are pursuing a carbon lite sustainable policy!

Putting off 70% recycling till 2025 means going slow on recycling, when some countries (Falmand/Berlgium) and municipalities have already reached this level

FOE Cymru proposed 70% by 2015 and 80% by 2020 are very feasible.

WAG claims that "a minimum level of 70 per cent recycling would be the most cost effective and deliverable level", but 'deliverable' means the dodgy deal with fractious Local Authorities in December 2008.  Over 80% recycling would be cost effective and the best way of reducing greenhouse gases

Sack Cardiff Planning Committee Cllrs

Have to confess I missed this! How did this come back? What happened to the appeal to the Welsh Planning Inspectorate? I never heard a thing? Keep it quiet and sneak it through! Cardiff council planning committee members who voted for this big burner are the most stupid, ignorant councillors in the UK - do they ever read their papers, would it occur to them to think of the cost never mind the long term effects of this on Cardiff?   Do they ever ask the right questions, they need a dummies guide to being GREEN?

My dear councillors, Viridor is misleading the public calling this huge incinerator 'Energy from Waste' which is NOT aimed at reclaiming the energy, not being located suitably for uses of the heat,  but has waste disposal as primary purpose.  In the Environments Agency's own phrasing it's a "carbon sinner".

And what on earth are  "transportation infrastructure enhancements"  in Cardiff wanttobe a sustainable transport city?  Will this reduce the carbon footprint of Cardiff - and all the hundreds of lorries trundling through Cardiff from all over S Wales and then lorries trundling out to englansd with toxic ash and this is what is called Carbon lite by that dope Fib Dem R Berman!

“Prosiect Gwyrdd” (project green') -couldn't make it up - Can WAG and Cardiff Council justify, the guarantee of £9 million per year to waste incineration in the Cardiff/Newport area ?

It has been justified as "producing much needed energy".  Yet we know the electricity from one of these large incinerators is pretty small, 20 or 30MW, compared with normal power stations (several 100MW up to Aberthaw’s 1450MW).

Various mechanical and bio-treatments (MBT) are roughly half the cost of incinerators, but WAG’s officials were so set on incineration that they approved the £9 million/year despite adopted policy to minimise waste disposal by landfill and incineration.

They also threatened to make things difficult for MBT by banning use of compost-like outputs for land reclamation, though permitted in England (and meeting the standards for applying treated sewage sludge to land).  At the same time, they proposed to ignore the toxicity of incinerator ash and classify as “recycling” its use in embankments or other construction.

 WAG’s officials rigged the financial assessments to make out that incineration would be less costly than landfill, and ignored the tax-millions coming back.

The answer is an evidence-based waste strategy based on MBT, like Ireland ’s?

 Bristol city council, councillors are more with it, used their brains and went against planning officers recommendations and said NO to incineration and Viridor! HELP!!! Cardiff is in the dark ages!!

WAG rubbish waste policy

Can WAG justify, especially in a period of reduced public expenditure, the guarantee of £9 million per year to waste incineration in the Cardiff/Newport area  (report 27 May) ? 

It was justified in the 27 January 2009 Press Release as "producing much needed energy".  Yet we know the electricity from one of these large incinerators is pretty small, 20 or 30MW, compared with normal power stations (several 100MW up to Aberthaw’s 1450MW). 

Various mechanical and bio-treatments (MBT) are roughly half the cost of incinerators, but WAG’s officials were so set on incineration that they approved the £9 million/year despite adopted policy to minimise waste disposal by landfill and incineration.

They also threatened to make things difficult for MBT by banning use of compost-like outputs for land reclamation, though permitted in England (and meeting the standards for applying treated sewage sludge to land).  At the same time, they proposed to ignore the toxicity of incinerator ash and classify as “recycling” its use in embankments or other construction.

The landfill tax is now a nice earner at £48 per tonne, rising to £72 per tonne, with WAG getting its fraction from the central exchequer.  WAG’s officials rigged the financial assessments to make out that incineration would be less costly than landfill, and ignored the tax-millions coming back.

Now that public expenditure realities are hitting us, is there a chance that we will get an evidence-based waste strategy based on MBT, like Ireland ’s?  Will WAG find some way to get out of the extraordinarily rash promise of £9 million per year to the Cardiff/Newport incinerator ?

Max Wallis