In defence of incinerator plans
Tuesday 17th March 2009, 4:33PM GMT.
Yesterday Shrewsbury & Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski criticised proposals for a £60 million waste incinerator in Shrewsbury.
He argued that the county’s waste partnership bosses were letting down the public and pressing ahead with the plans at the expense of “greener” alternatives.
Today, Donald MacPhail, managing director of Veolia Environmental Services Shropshire Ltd, gives the case for the incinerator.
“In Shropshire we produce on average around one tonne of rubbish per household each year. That is the same weight as more than 20,000 double decker buses. If parked end-to-end those buses would stretch from Shrewsbury to London.
More and more people across Shropshire are recycling their rubbish using both the kerbside collections and the household recycling centres. Currently just over 46 per cent of rubbish in Shropshire is recycled – that means 54 per cent is still going to be landfilled.
So, the big question is: Does anyone give any thought as to where the rubbish that goes into our bins ends up?
Landfill sites – holes in the ground – are filling up fast and we are running out of space to bury our rubbish. Councils, and therefore council tax payers, will face fines of up to £150 per tonne of rubbish that is sent to landfill, over a set quota. Something must be done to address this situation. Doing nothing is not an option.
Veolia’s strategy is to approach waste management in a hierarchy of measures by reducing, reusing, recycling, recovering energy and land filling. We want to tackle waste in that order.
One part of our strategy is to build an Energy from Waste (EfW) facility in order to recover energy from waste, instead of sending it to landfill.
The proposed facility would be able to process 90,000 tonnes of municipal waste a year, generating enough electricity to power around 10,000 homes.
A lot of people will want to know exactly how an EfW facility will be monitored. The facility will use rubbish that is not separated by residents for recycling or composting to generate energy.
EfW facilities are a tried and tested method of managing waste that are highly regulated and subject to stringent Government legislation. For the facility to go ahead it has to be given not only planning permission by Shropshire County Council but an Environmental Permit by the Environment Agency.
The facility would be monitored to ensure it complied with all necessary legislation by the EA, which would not license the plant until it was completely satisfied that the facility was able to meet strict emission standards and was safe. Emissions would be monitored to ensure operation within the limits set under the Waste Incineration Directive.
The UK Health Protection Agency has said: “Modern, well-managed waste incinerators will only make a very small contribution to background levels of air pollution. Air-monitoring data demonstrate that emissions from incinerators are not a major contributor to ambient air pollution.”
Another question that people may ask is: Why build it at Battlefield? There is a good answer to that. The Battlefield site emerged out of a wide ranging and detailed assessment of sites for the local waste plan.
Well-served
The site itself is centrally placed near to where the majority of waste is produced and adjacent to existing waste management facilities. It is easily accessible and well-served by the existing road network. This is our rubbish, created by us here in Shropshire, and we need to take responsibility for dealing with it – within Shropshire.
A planning application for the facility was submitted to Shropshire County Council in January. If the application is successful, the facility would be operational by 2013. After construction this would create over 20 full time jobs in Shropshire but this proposed facility is only one part of the picture.
When Veolia Environmental Services was awarded the 27 year contract by the Shropshire Waste Partnership in October 2007 we set out our plans for an integrated waste management strategy for the county.
Since taking over the contract, we have been keen to work in partnership with local councils, the community sector and other contractors, to focus on waste prevention and reuse. Examples of this include the use of Shofur – the community furniture schemes – to collect bulky waste as a means of getting reuse from material that would otherwise have been landfilled.
A major part of the service is to deliver an improved and consistent kerbside recycling service to Shropshire. Additional properties in Bridgnorth and Oswestry now get a full alternate weekly collection service. As well as this, we will be rolling out a new kerbside plastic bottle recycling collection service to all households in Shropshire. There will also be an extension of compostable materials to include food waste across all areas of Shropshire. These services are planned to be introduced in 2010 /11.
We are also building a new Integrated Waste Management Facility in Oswestry, which should be complete by July 2009. A similar facility is also planned for Bridgnorth and improvements are planned for Craven Arms and Battlefield IWMFs. The focus of this work is to allow recycling to be improved to reach over 50 per cent by 2013.
The proposed EfW facility at Battlefield is just part of this strategy of dealing with our waste in Shropshire. It is up to the planning authority to determine this application for Shropshire, based on the facts in the planning application.
However, we believe that our integrated approach which puts the emphasis on recycling and then generates electricity from the remaining waste, is the best for Shropshire and will dramatically reduce the amount of our rubbish that ends up in holes in the ground.”
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I think this is a good idea, it will create jobs , save transport of waste to other sites , I do not think all of this “not in my back yard ” attitude is right considering the present economic situation .it works in other countries without any problem .
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Good idea. But do we need on in Shrewsbury and Telford really. Why not do one to deal with both areas and create more electricity from one point.
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There are some very good alternatived to burning unsorted household refuse containing plastics, chemicals, and all manner of toxic substances.
Burning does not destroy a substance, but changes its chemical make-up. And not always for the good.
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Good on Veolia. We need to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, and producing energy from waste is an excellent idea as long as emissions are monitored.
Kawczynski should stop pandering to NIMBYs.
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These waste burners only get around 20% of the energy in the waste converted to electricity. In doing so they produce twice as much CO2 as a modern coal power station.
The plant will cost the public around £130 per tonne to burn each tonne of waste. It will drain the councils budget and require that recycling is reduced in the medium term to keep the burner fed.
Already people are making less waste. Newspapers are read on-line and wine bottles are getting thiner. This plant will not cope with the changes of our waste over the next 25 years.
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its not a popular plan with my mates in the area
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I think it’s a great idea!
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Tell you what, if we all start burning our own waste in our own back gardens, there’ll be no need for a massive incinerator at all…
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Can they really be certain that the fumes will be safe – or in a few years time wil we be looking at a cancer cluster in Shrewsbury ? The ‘experts’ may say it’s safe but how can they be certain.
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1) Alternatively, townie, townies like you and I could reduce the amount of waste the council has to collect from us by composting our garden and kitchen scraps and/or use wormeries to break down kitchen waste (easy to buy on internet -just google ‘wormery’).
2) We could also encourage friends and neighbours to recycle more.
In Holland and in Germany they recycle TWICE as much as we do in the UK.
As Keith Kondakor rightly points out, Veolia’s incineration strategy will completely undermine recycling or zero-waste strategies if continued over 27 years (the length of this contract).
It would be interesting if Donald MacPhail, managing director of Veolia Environmental Services Shropshire Ltd, could let us know..
a) what he thinks about zero-waste strategies
b) whether -over a period of 27 years – an incinerator will encourage or discourage the vital waste-minimization programmes he trumpets in this article
3) We could educate ourselves about the appalling environmental impacts of mining for raw materials around the world.
We could learn about what happens to our waste once it has been collected and realise that WE ALL have a responsibility to minimize those impacts and perhaps start zero-waste strategies in our families and workplaces.
4) We could campaign for bio-digesters like they have in Ludlow to generate energy safely. This would also boost local businesses, perhaps creating new jobs at this difficult time.
PS to robert cartwright and GB, I am not a NIMBY.
I live in Shrewsbury town centre, but feel that we should support people living close to the site for this proposed incinerator, especially if we feel incineration is undermining sustainable waste-minimization strategies like recycling.
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A respected international expert on the weaknesses of EfW and a champion of better alternatives, Professor Paul Connett, is coming to speak in Shrewsbury on Friday 27th March, at 7.30pm in the Alington Hall at Shrewsbury School.
I would urge all those interested to come and hear him.
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Huw I completely agree with you. I already recycle whatever I can, taking it all to tip (I run out of space before the collection) and I compost what I can too. Not saying I’m perfect but I try and do my bit.
I just think that it doesn’t seem that long ago that it was quite common for people to burn their household rubbish, or maybe that’s just where I grew up.
We also recycle a lot at work – card, paper, cans and plastic bottles get collected by a waste disposal company. The annoying thing is the council don’t seem to care about business recycling, there’s absolutely no council provision for business recycling. It would be interested to know how much waste in landfill comes from businesses. I know that we get through at least 30-40 cardboard boxes in deliveries a week, not even counting paper wastage, stationery packaging and the packaging on all our lunches etc.
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im not impressed
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townie, you said ‘the council don’t seem to care about business recycling, there’s absolutely no provision for business recycling’.
Could you therefore comment on the following..?
A quick search on Google brought me to the Shropshire Council site, which IS -on the surface at least- providing for business recycling.
Just key in ‘Shropshire Council business waste’ into Google.
On the shropshire council site you can find out that there is money for businesses available via the ‘Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme’, which specifically focuses on waste minimisation, the diversion of waste from landfill and improvements to resource efficiency.
2) There is also information about the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) programme that allows one company’s waste to be used as raw materials by another company.
3) The Environment Agency website provides helpful information about disposing of tyres and oil and offers advice about minimising waste by reducing raw material use, making more from less and reducing the volume and hazard of emissions to air, land and water.
4) Envirowise offers UK businesses free, independent, confidential advice and support on practical ways to increase profits, minimise waste and reduce environmental impact.
5) The NetRegs website aims to help small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK to understand environmental regulations and gives advice on good environmental practice.
Has your business tried any of these schemes?
On the surface, at least, they seem quite helpful, don’t they?
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I have visited a similar facility in Dudley and I was very impressed. It is situated very near to domestic properties which have not suffered any ill effects.
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you cant defend the indefensible
it can never be right to burn material which can be recycled
they should sort it more, even if the households dont there are machines which can do this sort of thing, rake out the recyclable stuff etc
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something has to happen as eu are now charging/fining councils £40 a ton to dump in landfill sites and 40 will become 100 next year and rising. it all goes on our council tax. why not use the buildwas site or the old sugar beet site for incineration/disposal
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Look it up in the dictionary!
To incinerate; to burn.
Burn what?
Answer: Absolutely anything.
What will happen?
Answer: Severely harmful chemicals and greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere.
What will be the long term effects?
Answer: FURTHER global warming, Cancer rates increasing in Shrewsbury and surrounding towns, Shropshire and surrounding counties.
Any alternatives?
Answer: YES! Keep recycling!
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its true at home i recycling everything but at work it all goes in the bin
shocking wasteful companies
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Ed,
And your evidence for severely harmful chemicals being released, increases in cancer, and even the tiniest measurable effect on global warming is where precisely?
Where are the independent properly carried out scientific studies that prove these things?
Or were you just scaremongering?
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What about this document from the World Health Organisation for starters, Peter?
Put ‘World Health Organisation incinerators dioxin’ into Google and this will take you to ‘Fact sheet no. 225 from November 2007 Fact sheet N°225 from November 2007 ‘Dioxins and their effects on human health’.
In the 3rd paragraph, the fact sheet reads ‘In terms of dioxin release into the environment, waste incinerators (solid waste and hospital waste) are often the worst culprits, due to incomplete burning.’
I wonder if you could comment on this, Peter.
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not good
i think even landfill is cheaper and safer than incineration, but i would rather less packaging from the supermarkets and better local recycling schemes please
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i dont think the properganda from veolia is at all beleivable, we all know burning rubbish causes pollution and we dont want it in shropshire, the evidence is compelling
try reading The Health Effects of Waste Incinerators” published by the British Society for. Ecological Medicine (BSEM) …
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we should be looking at cheaper and cleaner alternatives, number one amongst those would be MORE RECYCLING and number two would be anaerobic digestion for food waste, after than i cant imagine there will be much left to worry about
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In 1994 the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published 2,000 pages of draft results from a three-year dioxin study by more than 100 scientists – the most exhaustive review of a single compound the agency has undertaken.
The EPA said dioxins were a potential cause of a range of illnesses including developmental, reproductive, hormonal and immune system problems, even at very low exposure levels. These include physical and mental development problems in children and falling sperm counts in men, scientists involved in the study said yesterday. The review also re-affirmed evidence that dioxins are linked with cancer in humans.
People are exposed to dioxins largely through food contaminated with airborne dioxins that settle on plants. Most of these come from industrial waste incinerators.
There is a study by the UK Health Protection Agency too called Dioxins – Health Effects of Acute / Single Exposure (Animal / In-Vitro) which looked at what levels of dioxin are required to kill various rodent populations.
The 2004 University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study is a big one by DOW
Theres Dr Helen Keenans research from the Advanced Dioxin and Furan Monitoring Laboratory in Thailand
Basically all the research which lead to the Stockholm Convention global treaty which seeks to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
Have a look at the Environment Agency website for the most balanced views on dioxin and bioaccumulation in fatty tissues of mammals
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i had a look
the greenpeace website says they are bad but other sites say they are ok
I wish there was more research so i could make a valid judgement
I dont know….
what do people think, can we not trust the government regulators to keep us safe? I guess they got it wrong before, but, well I dont know
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It would be great if Donald McPhail (author of the above article) or Peter could respond to some of the points above at the public meeting, ‘Incineration: an unacceptable practice in the 21st Century’ on Friday 27th March, 7.30pm in the Alington Hall at Shrewsbury School.
The guest speaker is the respected international expert on the safer alternatives to incineration, Professor Paul Connett.
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Huw,
Dioxins are bad for you – but where is the evidence that the proposed incinerator will produce these in significant quantities?
I don’t really regard Dr Paul Connett’s views as balanced – he is a known environmentalist with links to organsiations such as Greenpeace. As such he is unlikely to present both sides of the scientific argument in a balanced way.
I understand that the imposition of some of his views on ‘zero waste’ in the Philippines have resulted in an increase in illegal waste burning (lots of dioxins there!) illegal dumping, and an increase in smog. But at least it’s a ‘green’ solution…
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are crematoria harmful, i think we sloud be told
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Of course they are dev, look on the Federation of British Crematorion Authorities and the Cremation Society – the big problem now (as with waste incinetors or coal fired power stations) is mercury emissions which can be fatal – they also give off dioxin though as do cement kilns, smelters etc too – barbeques and wood burning stoves – they all give off dioxins as does any form of burning basically – even cigarette smoke contains dioxin!
Peter for you info, dioxin forms when anything containing chlorine is burned, hence the concern about municpal rubbish because this will contain poly vinyl CHLORIDE (PVC) plastic in the form of spent credit cards, wall paper, lino, cling film, plastic bottles etc as well as all the naturally occuring cholirinated compounds. Chlorine is naturally present in a lot of places too, sodium CHLORIDE (salt) hence there are trace amounts of dioxin everywhere from sources like forest fires.
The problem is adding in new man made dioxin so to speak which increases our exposure. All the medical experts agree there is no “safe” level of exposure to dioxin, its just about balancing risk.
Do you want to risk cancer to get rid of your rubbish conveniently? The choice is down to the people of Shrewsbury at the ballot box.
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According to the World Health Organisation’s ‘Fact sheet N°225 ‘Dioxins and their effects on human health’, ‘in terms of dioxin release into the environment, waste incinerators (solid waste and hospital waste) are often the worst culprits, due to incomplete burning.’
We know that you deny the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, Peter. (See http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/04/25/climate-criticism-unfounded/ #4,7,16).
Do you also think that the WHO was wrong to say what it said about incinerators in November 2007?
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I am very concerned about this ‘public health experiment’ – we all know dioxin is deadly, look at that poor prime minister of Ukraine, the KGB spiked his drink with a dose, the incinerator would slowly over time expose us all to this, just because something comes dip drip drip in small amounts and takes years to kill you doesnt mean its any less dangerous than a large dose all at once of this poison though its more fast acting then
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how typical we have the eu in brussells telling us with to do with our rubbish, we have a socialist scot in london telling us to do what the EU want, now we have french bin men and we have a scot running that telling us what to do again, well i say go home all of you, we in shropshire can run our own affairs we dont want a west midlands regional assembly or an EU diktat commission running things, we want british jobs for british workers, we want freedom to choose and we dont want that burner here, we want weekly bin day and only the conservatives are promising that
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the usual defence is ‘they have them in europe and everyones healthy there’ but the western world have the highest rates of cancer in the world and clusters around industrial areas, its impossible not to implicate PM10 and dioxin in those cancer clusters if you look at the actual science
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just because we’re working class doesnt mean we deserve this build on our door step, put it in Copthorne if its so safe, i dare them. Im appauled, we’ve already seen all our fields built on for the business park, but this is too far, there was never planning permission for this, that place was built for light industry under the planning permission i remember it at the time, this is not LIGHT industry, this is heavy industry, power generation, also if you look in the waste local plan it specifically rules out incineration, so this proposal is ILLEGAL, any planning inspector would back us on this I pray, we must stop this area becoming an industrial blot of contaminated land, in years to come, when this is gone, the land will be unusable for years to come, because dioxin is persistant in the soil for ever
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if you look at the evidence from Italy
go on just google ‘ buffazo mozzerella italy dioxin ‘ and read for your self
you see just how dangerous it can be what happens when toxic dioxin from burning rubbish gets into mammals
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dioxins kill full stop end of, look at the industrial accidents of the past, its too risky, we dont want it, our children are too precious to gamble with their health
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green wash!
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the telford one could manage for both areas waste atleast there one is CHP too, shrewsbury one is not needed
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Tory Boy, you said incineration was being forced on us by the EU.
I am sure you are aware by now that the Tories voted FOR incineration in the European Parliament, as part of the EU-wide Waste Framework Directive.
Conservative MEP Caroline Jackson spoke out for incineration, while at the same time advising waste company Shanks.
What do readers think of this conflict of interest?
Is it sustainable to vote through something very ungreen in Brussels, and then say things like ‘Think Green Vote Blue’ before elections?
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scary stuff
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better than smoking but still not very healthy i agree, what are the prefered alternative solutions though people?
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Some solutions: Much more recycling (we only recycle HALF of what the Germans and Dutch do), more education for householders on recycling and composting, anaerobic digestion ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/11/03/county-bio-firm-in-takeover-deal/ ), stronger laws on excessive packaging for starters.
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