Eco group criticises incinerator plan
Tuesday 14th April 2009, 3:15PM BST.
Environmental campaigners today claimed an incinerator in Shrewsbury would tie the county into an “outdated and wasteful process” for 30 years.
Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth is against plans for a £60 million incinerator at Battlefield and is calling on people to join together to stop the proposal.
A meeting will be held at The Gateway in Shrewsbury at 7.30pm on April 21.
The speaker at the meeting – entitled “How to stop the Battlefield incinerator” will be Keith Kondakor – an anti-incinerator campaigner.
Dave Green, of Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth, writing in the group’s newsletter, says there are a number of weaknesses in the application submitted to planning bosses by Veolia – the company behind the scheme.
Veolia claims an incinerator could generate enough power to supply 10,000 homes and help to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill to just five per cent.
But Mr Green said: “There are many issues of concern due to the site of the proposed incinerator being so near a borehole and the potential for flooding.
“There are few serious proposals in the application to utilise the heat.
“The fact that the proposed incinerator, if built, would tie Shropshire into an outdated and wasteful process for 30 years is lamentable. It will not be easy to stop the burner but we believe with concentrated effort, it can be done.”
Mr Green urges people to attend the meeting on April 21 and calls it a “practical action” meeting.
He said there were alternatives to an incinerator and added: “We are firm believers that recycling rates could be taken much higher and that over the next five or 10 years levels of waste should fall and recycling should rise so the residual amount left over should fall without bringing in expensive solutions.
“There are many things in the pipeline which we may not recommend now but are worth keeping an eye on.”
Mr Green said an interesting idea was gasification, which produces a gas to feed into the National Grid.
By Rebecca Lawrence
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
alot can change in 30 years
Report abuse
this french firm should be making rubbish in france not taking british jobs off british workers, i am livid that ever since the EU backed french company took over our waste we have fortnightly collections of rubbish a stinking health hazard which is a labour idea, we the conservatives will bring back weekly collections in Shropshire when we get back in and you will see a better service for less taxes because we are more efficient
Report abuse
Tory Boy, actually its the councils decsion to have fortnightly collections and if there was an incinerator, then that would create jobs for the british! conervatives are all talk and no action, why havent you been in power for such a long time, because you havent offered anything we like! and about the 30 years thing, havent we been putting in a rubbish in a big hole for a long time, an incinerator compared to a hole would be classed as a new way to dispose our waste and turn it into energy!
Report abuse
Weekly recycling equals less recycling = Worse for the environment.
Report abuse
Incineration vs landfill is a false dilemma.
Massively expanding recycling and investment in public education about waste will create many more jobs than incineration.
In the same way, energy conservation, wind power and other renewables will create more jobs than nuclear.
That’s why -if jobs are the criteria- then we need a green industrial revolution to catch up with the Germans and other EU countries, who are looking to the green sector to revive their economic fortunes.
Report abuse
we should look at the proposals objectively and let the scientists decide, use your head not your hearts
Report abuse
niall, what do you think of what scientists at the World Health Organisation (WHO) decided.
Google the WHO’s ‘Fact sheet no. 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.’
Judging by the hostile response to the incinerator proposals in Telford ( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/12/03/mps-survey-reveals-79-against-burner/ ) and in Shrewsbury, would you not agree that people are using their head AND their hearts, niall?
Report abuse
huws point is true, its a false choice because even after incineration, you still have a big pile of soot and ash to landfill, so you will always have landfills
Report abuse
gg, what do you think of the idea of getting a zero-waste strategy going in Shropshire?
Professor Paul Connett, who spoke about incineration at Shrewsbury School in March 2009, urged all of those present to push for a zero-waste strategy here in Shropshire.
He spoke about the electronics company Xerox, whose zero-waste strategy has saved it lots of money over the years.
I think that there is a zero-waste initiative in Bishop’s Castle, and there are pots of money available from local government to do the right thing (see http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/03/17/in-defence-of-incinerator-plans/ #14), which we could publicise and build on.
Prof Connett spoke about the job-creating potential of zero-waste strategies and the need for public education.
He was confident that -if it is explained to people in the right way- that the public will get behind initiatives like this.
Yesterday I read about a small town in Japan, Kamikatsu, which is trying to be the first community to end its dependence on incineration and landfill by 2020 and thus become Japan’s first zero waste community.
We should be doing this here, but we will need many more people to push for it and campaign.
We will also need to have a public forum to share good practice and experience.
Paul Palmer published a book which summarized and drew from his experiences, ‘Getting To Zero Waste’.
Have you read it, gg?
Or has anyone else out there in Shropshire?
If so, it would be great to share ideas with you about how to get a project like this off the ground.
Report abuse
Huw,
Once again you’re making the completely unsafe assumptions that the proposed incinerator will a)not burn the waste properly, and b) therefore release high levels of dioxins.
I don’t believe you have evidence that this particular incinerator will do that, do you? If so, perhaps you could present it.
The MP’s survey you quote is meaningless in terms of science. Many of those who bothered to reply will have been eco-types like you who would be opposed no matter what safeguards and assurances were in place, or possibly ill-informed people who only have the eco-propaganda thrust at them at every opportunity to go on.
It’s hardly likely to have been a survey based upon balanced, well-informed views is it?
Report abuse
Huw, first I have heard of it but would certainly like to know more… there has to be an alternative to this incinerator
Report abuse
as spock says in star trek ‘ you cannot change the laws of physics captain ‘ – this is the law of thermodynamics which says you will always have waste from any process – the aim should be minimisation of this waste, we can make it so tiny its insignificant, but it will never be zero
we should recycle and re-use more then we can get as close to zero as possible, but zero waste is an aim not realistic target
Report abuse
Peter, we know that you dispute the unequivocal message from the world’s climate scientists about climate change( http://www.shropshirestar.com/2007/04/25/climate-criticism-unfounded/ #2,4,7 ), so I find your reliance on science in this case puzzling.
Do you also dispute what scientists at the WHO say about incinerators?
Report abuse
OK then, lets scrap the incinerator idea and build one big recyling plant, recycling plants consume huge amounts of energy, where does that energy come from, yess, the ironbridge power station, how is the station powered, by coal, the coal is dug up out of the ground, what will be cheaper to run, a recycling plant or an incinerator which will create energy instead of using it!
Report abuse
I was glad Dave Green, Shrewsbury FoE realistically considers and said “an interesting idea was gasification, which produces a gas to feed into the National Grid.”
“There are many things in the pipeline which we may not recommend now but are worth keeping an eye on.”
Dave means small scale gasplasma/plasma gasification and appreciate his organisation’s current policy position over this technology type.
Hugh Peach rightly state Landfill v Incineration (skyfilling)is a false choice; just as burning 50% of total waste effectively puts a 50% ceiling on recycling and composting; by contractural logic.
I would want gasification to be more refined a little to settle on vastly cleaner and less wasteful (0.5% residue to landfill)Best Available Technology small scale “plasma gasification/ gasplasma” of lesser amounts of residual waste. Certainly not 50% or 70,000Tpa of waste as per Veolia’s not heat utilising burner. One would have to aim to minimise more and maximising recycle , separate and collect food waste with anaerobic digestion back to farmland.
Peter, the prime health and emissions concerns are not 1990′s dioxin or furans; they are now exotic PM2.5 fine particles and nano particles due to the furnace temperatures, modern filter escapes and lack of WID specific monitoring. The health pathways/ minute emissions amounts involved are scientifically proven in the US by Docherty, Pierera, Pope et al and Italy by Monterani and Gatti (Gulf War/Balkan War Syndrome) EU nanopathogy researchers. We know for sure that Uk scientists/HPA/CMEAP haven’t been able to continue epidemiological incinerator/health studies since 2004, 5 missing years.
Paul Connett highlights this. I beleive Paul overegged the potential for Zero Waste (which realistically/practically means 70-80, not 100% landfull diversion). But we are part of the Zero Waste revolution; we minimise and reduce (plastic bags/packaging demands), 40% recycling rates, we compost garden waste and some veg food waste. Companies are minimising, recycling, recovering and even redesigning products and materials more.
But the realism is one is always likely to have, and cover a residual portion of about 20-30% with layered technology solutions. Mechanical sorting or Autoclaving of what can be materially recovered; Anaerobic Digestion module with Combined Heat and Power of the separate organic fraction; plasma gasification module H2 rich syngas/CHP conversion of material that its is difficult/not viable to recover. Euonomia 2007 Climate Change Techo report applies. CHP/EfWIncineration are ranked about 18th/20th best; other technologies mentioned above in the top/best 8.
Its difficult to impose a Japan, Kamikatsu total separationsolution at a town or county level. It works at the village/small community where all buy into the concept; but larger scale this extreme material division wouldn’t work, be counter productive and would take a long time for this level of material transition. People don’t work this way. Even in Kamikatsu, resentments were rife.
However pressing forward to divert 70-80% of unwanted resources from landfill/skyfilling by Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Composting, Digesting, Material and Mechanical Recovery, Redesign is a massive acheivement/cost/energy efficiency in itself. At these rates, its far from viable to build and run a Veolia EfW incinerator.
Report abuse
idon’tbelieveit (#11) you said you want to hear more.
gg (#12) wanted to be convinced on the zero-waste idea.
There is a 2-minute BBC news report from Friday, 11 July 2008 by Roger Harrabin about Kamikatsu’s zero-waste intiative, which you can watch on the BBC website by googling ‘Zero Waste Japan’.
This shows you what zero-waste looks like in practice.
Professor Connett told the hundred or so people who came to his talk about the success of the city of San Francisco, which was one of the first US cities to aim for zero waste and radically cut down on its detritus.
According to a Fortune magazine article from January 11 2007, the Australian territory of Canberra, a third of local governments in New Zealand, the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, and other small towns in California all have embraced a goal of zero waste.
The Grassroots Recycling Network is a US website with useful tips for people who might want to get involved in the Shropshire Zero Waste campaign.
Anyone out there interested in helping get this started?
Report abuse
we should all do more recycling and they should aim for 70% recycling like the welsh and scottish are, not 50% which is already being achieved in south shropshire
Report abuse
#14 MR J, I do not accept what you say about the recycling centre’s energy use.
Recycling saves resources and saves energy.
If you feel we have to continue to use large centralised power plants using fossil fuels like coal, I would be interested in what you think about the Efficiencity computer animation on the Greenpeace UK site.
Decentralised energy would create more local jobs in Shropshire.
In the same way, a zero-waste initiative would create more employment than incineration if we had the vision to embrace it.
Report abuse
rob whittle hits the nail on the head when he says it will form a ceiling, an upper limit on recycling which is way too low for most people to accept
Report abuse
yeah agree don
Report abuse
they are right it is not ecological to burn rubbish because burning anything gives of fumes which harm people and wildlife, im particularly concerned here that the nitrogen oxides emitting from burning would acidify and eutrophy wetlands in north shrewsbury which are an important home for BAP species such as Great Crested Newts which are protected by law, so in theory, this should not be allowed because clearly it will harm protected species, also the people of harlescott and around will suffer health impacts
Report abuse
im concerned about the fumes and also the exagerated figures about electricity production which are completely over egged.
A typical home in the UK uses about 4500 kWh of electricity for power each year, however in Shropshire where there is no mains gas to account for space heating, each home also uses an additional 20,000 kWh per annum for space heating. This means they are claiming that they will have an output of 245000000 kWh each year – thats 245 GigaWatthours (GWh) – or about £34 million pounds worth of electricity each year! That is ludicrous, for an 8MW turbine which is so inefficient it only captures about 20% of the energy and through maintenence etc will be out of action for around 20% of the year.
Ironbridge power plant which is 25 times the capacity produces about 2500 GWh per annum, only 10 times more than they are claiming can be produced.
It would be more accurate to say that this proposal would produce enough power for 4,000 homes
Report abuse
the flood risk here is a serious concern too which should cause it to be turned down
Report abuse
whatever yawn zzz this is old news now
Report abuse
A zero waste initiative would create more jobs than incineration, jim.
Is job creation really so boring?
Report abuse
renewable ??? energy
Report abuse
much of the biomass content of rubbish is things like paper and food scraps, you cannot say that its a renewable resource, because much of it is unneccessary waste, if people printed on both sides of paper and recycled more there would be less waste. Also most of our waste these days is things like plastic which is not biodegradable or renewable but made from finite un renewable fossil fules
Report abuse
the evidence is clear the people of shrewsbury dont want this thing – is anyone listening
Report abuse