Multi-million pound plans to build an incinerator in Telford - which aims to tackle the borough’s growing mountain of waste - were unveiled today.
The incinerator planned for a site at Granville tip, on the outskirts of the borough, would be able to process 62,000 tonnes of non-recyclable rubbish every year. It would also create 17 new jobs if the plans were given the go-ahead.
Bosses at SITA UK, a French-owned waste management company, and its partner Cyclerval, which are behind the plans, are expected to submit a planning application to Telford & Wrekin Council in the next two months.
A SITA UK spokeswoman would not reveal the exact cost of the borough plant but said it would run into “millions of pounds”.
Company chiefs said the “energy from waste” facility would provide electricity for homes and businesses across the borough.Geraint Rees, SITA general manager, said: “The proposed plant would not only provide a long-term facility for treating residual waste following recycling, but also has the potential to support local businesses and secure jobs by providing affordable and reliable heat and power.”
The proposal is expected to create an outcry among public health and environmental campaigners who claim such schemes are potentially hazardous.
Telford Friends of the Earth has already expressed opposition to an incinerator, claiming it would produce potentially harmful fumes.
Council bosses said the borough is running out of space for rubbish burial. It has significantly boosted recycling despite initial grumbles from householders. It faces hefty Government “fines” if it does not reduce landfill rates.
Councillor Steve Bentley, cabinet member for environment, said: “We are very keen that the whole issue of waste disposal is opened for consultation with the community at this very early stage.”
Supporters of burning rubbish say the latest generation of incinerators are a clean and cost-effective way of dealing with waste and producing electricity.
A possible alternative for Telford is mechanical biological treatment - sorting and processing waste, some of which would go to landfill and some for use as fuel.
18 Comments
Why not spend a few million more and extend it into a recycling plant. This will not only increase the employment figure, but more importantly remove the ridiculous situation where the council tax payers are ‘forced’ to re-cycle their own rubbish - with the risk of criminal prosecution if they put out an extra bag or put the wrong item into the wrong box (see last weeks Shropshire Star news item).
about time
About time too. And now I hope that we will see the end to this enforced re-cycling since the stuff will no longer be going to landfill.
Of course, if the council still wants to re-cycle, there is nothing to stop it going through the rubbish before it is incinerated.
I wonder if Sita will dare to field a candidate against Dr Dick van Steenis MBBS in a “head-to-head” debate about the health effects of incineration?
Sita want to build an incinerator in Capel, Surrey and also at St Dennis, Cornwall and Dr Dick van Steenis has addressed public meetings in both places, but Sita kept theur heads down.
See websites for Capel Action Group and STIG [St Dennis Incinerator Group] for more information.
Kind regards,
Michael Ryan,
Shrewsbury
This is a huge multinational company planning to cash in on the panic caused by rising landfill charges. Your councillors are being railroaded into taking on obsolete and dangerous technology and few of them will know much about the reality of incineration and its effects.
Don’t be fooled by talk of ‘Energy from Waste’ or ‘Energy Recovery’ or ‘they’re much cleaner now’: incinerators are burners and as such are dangerous, expensive and polluting (they actually multiply other sources of pollution such as cars, not just add to them).
They have a huge carbon footprint. They emit invisible toxic particulate matter (PM 2.5s, emissions which are not monitored and stay in the lungs causing a range of illnesses and, in some cases, deaths in areas up to 16 miles around, especially downwind.
Here in Shrewsbury our campaign group (safewasteshropshire.co.uk) is fighting a proposed incinerator at Battlefield, North Shrewsbury. We’re not NIMBYs - we don’t want them anywhere! Companies like Veolia and Sita know full well that there are cleaner and cheaper ways of disposing of non-recylable waste such as plasma gasification and MBT and they are using this elsewhere, but unfortunately the government is currently handing out large amounts of PFI money to incinerator projects. There are various (some of them allegedly dodgy) reasons for this. Southwark Borough Council rejected an incinerator so they are getting an MBT plant - it can be done!
Incineration will undermine recycling - they have to keep burning 24/7 and the ‘monster’ must be fed. What do you think they will burn when they run out of municipal waste?
Reduce, re-use, recycle for all you’re worth and if you’ve got any sense, you’ll fight this proposed incinerator and demand a safer, cleaner alternative for the good of your health and that of all your children.
Good luck, Mirian Walton
Secretary, Safe Waste in Shropshire
Comments #1 amd #2 were not visible when I made my earlier comment. I’d have worded my post in support of them if they had been available.
Incineration only encourages us to continue wasting valuable resources, which we could be composting or recycling, and prevents us from addressing difficult issues like non-degradable packaging.
Responsible councils should be making recycling easier, implementing zero-waste strategies and rejecting the ‘dump it and burn it’ policies of yesterday.
Incineration will only remove the incentive to do what we all know is the right thing: REDUCE, RE-USE AND RECYCLE.
Again we are faced with having to make difficult decisions about the disposal of waste, household or otherwise – and again there are some good comments both for and against how this should take place. But it is still head in the sand with this – Money time and thought needs to be put in at the front end – Reduce the amount of packaging used, make what is used either bio degradable or easy to recycle i.e. paper not plastic, then and only then will we have the ability to reduce the waste output from the average family home
We need to cut down what we are using in egeneral and re-use what we can, not develop technologies which give us carte blanche to create waste willy-nilly, and will add to our already over-poullted home environments.
I live in Shrewsbury, could I take my rubbish and burn it in Telford along with some of the local wallers ,burning theyre stolen vauxhall novas.Chavs.
Sita wish to build an incinerator at Binn Farm, Perthshire, and they may not wish anyone in Telford, or Newport or Lilleshall, or Shifnal or in Staffordishire to see the electoral ward map of Coventry where Sita already have an incinerator.
The ward map showing 2003-5 infant mortality rates upwind & downwind of Coventry incinerator, which I prepared for incinerator lecture at Norwich in January 2007, can be seen at:
teag.org.uk/health.htm
I note that T&W council have taken great pride in telling us that they are opening more plastic recycling points. Whoopee! - but when are they going to start collecting plastics on the doorstep? That way we won;t have to dirve to places just to get rid of our rubbish.
Mark - I suggest you take a look at some of the druggies and low-life in your own town before you criticise Telford - Shrewsbury’s not all castles and half-timbered houses you know!
As for the Dick Van Steenis supporters’ club -he’s an amateur scientist with a particular point he wishes to prove - never a good starting point for unbiased science - just how reliable are his theories?
ah ha sita, another french owned company, i am surprised they have not wanted to dig a large hole in the wrekin and start shropshire’s premier volcano. presumably people living near granville park are not best pleased with a pemanent bonfire in their midst
Well said Peter.
But I for 1 do not want to live next to one of these incinerators!! there must be safer ways.
Telford and the Wrekin only recycle and compost only 35% of their waste. Almost all of the waste is recyclable (93.5% in one study) and if its not recycleable or compostable we should not be making it.
An incineator just moves the problem from dirty hole in the ground to dirty air we breath. The first aim must be to massive reduce the amount we produce. There are then modern plants that can clean the waste before a small clean and safe residual is landfilled. They are building these types of plant in Norfolk and lancastshire.
Just look at the first few comments to see what will happen if we have an incinerator ANYWHERE. Some people will just take it as permission to stop recycling. The general feeling is turning against excessive packaging, with major companies already cutting down the amounts used. Anti plastic bag campaigns are taking root. The price of oil, and therefore plastics, is increasing rapidly, and resources generally are being used up at an increasing rate.
Is this honestly the right time to start destroying resources inefficiently - as in an incinerator?
Do you really think that in 10 or 15 years time we will still be able to be so profligate? and yet we’ll still have these monsters demanding feeding - and the council (and therefore we) will be forced to go on paying for how long? 27 years, like Shrewsbury; 32 years, like Brighton?
If we are capable of thinking ahead more than 5 minutes, we must start reducing the amount of waste we use, and recycling ALL we can - not just what those of us with some sense of responsibility will do without coercion.
Well explained Mirian, Val, Keith and others who are pointing out the full picture with incineration. I fully support their comments - I lived by one of these monsters and they are indeed vile, burning all sorts of nasties 24/7 and encroaching on people’s everyday space and well-being in a horrible way. Neither am I NIMBY about the matter (my home in Stoke was in the shadow of one, my home here will be in the shadow of one if it goes ahead) but I still offer support to anyone anywhere fighting these things when there are safer options. I even did a big piece of academic research on incineration as part of my Degree to raise local awareness of health effects, which was highly praised for its depth, despite the fact that I was leaving Stoke after my Degree ended. They are not the best answer.
For the record, I also agree with people that much more responsibility should be taken by manufacturers for rubbish production, and I work voluntarily in my local community to educate people about the issue of taking responsibility ourselves too for our rubbish production rather than simply criticising the Council for providing us with a chance to recycle. They give us the chance to do so, and we should be grown up enough to use these facilities. It’s our Planet, isn’t it, and our kids? Shouldn’t we chip in and help look after it?
you cannot tell me that any technology can burn nappies, dog poo, plastic and all the other grim stuff that people put in their wheelie bins and not cause harmful smoke. you just cannnot, end of, its science fact, no smoke without fire, no incineration without pollution.