MP in bid to halt incinerator
Wednesday 19th August 2009, 11:00AM BST.
Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski today vowed to write to the Environment Secretary demanding an exemption for the county from landfill taxes in a bid to halt plans for a multi-million pound incinerator in the town.
He said he would write to Hilary Benn to ask for the area’s excellent recycling performance to be taken into consideration.
Under new Government directives due to come into force next year to reduce the amount of household waste that goes to landfill, Shropshire Council could be liable for fines of £150 per extra tonne if it exceeds its landfill limit.
But Mr Kawczynski said it was grossly unfair that Shropshire was being lumped together with other under-performing local authorities leaving the council with little choice but to go down the incineration route.
He said there were many better alternatives to Veolia’s proposed £60 million incinerator for Battlefield.
The Tory MP said: “The only reason that the incinerator is being proposed is because of the Government’s new landfill tax.
“This is a phenomenal tax on councils and under the new system if the council was to use landfill the tax would be millions of pounds.
“I am going to debate with the minister this policy of the Government where they are trying to treat everyone across the country in the same way.
“We are actually exceeding recycling targets in Shropshire and reducing the reliance on landfill.
“I think there should be an exemption for the top 10 performing councils in paying this tax.”
Mr Kawczynski said that if the authority was forced to have an incinerator much of the hard work in driving up recycling levels would be lost.
But Veolia, the company responsible for dealing with the county’s waste, says the proposed incinerator will not have a negative impact on recycling, is safe and will generate electricity.
Mr Kawczynski is due to meet with waste managers and leaders from the main political parties in Shropshire tomorrow over the firm’s plans.
By Russell Roberts
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
Why should Shropshire be treated any different? If it fails its waste reduction targets it should pay the same penalties as everywhere else. Our MP is always against things. What is he for (in both senses)?
Report abuse
As usual the elephant in the room goes conveniently unnoticed ie: the big supermarkets and their overpackaging. NO!! to the incinerator.
Report abuse
really will they really agree to that ??
Report abuse
These were the figures for recycling and composting in Shropshire in 2005/6.
Bridgnorth 36.0%
North Shropshire 38.5%
Oswestry 42.6%
Shrewsbury and Atcham 25.7%
South Shropshire 36.6%
Telford and Wrekin 30.5%
(Source: Defra, published 15 December 2006)
Hardly an ‘excellent recycling performance’ then at that stage.
However, South Shropshire District is different and deserves huge amounts of praise for the phenomenal turnaround in its recycling rates in the few years.
According to the figures in this article ( http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=5315&listitemid=52221 ) South Shropshire Council is now the 4th best performing authority for recycling in the whole country.
2008/9
South Shropshire 57.8%
According to James Thompson, South Shropshire’s waste prevention officer COLLECTING FOOD WASTE is the key to improving recycling rates.
Rather than demanding an exemption from landfill taxes, which ensure compliance, should our MP not be demanding why the other parts of Shropshire don’t collect food waste yet at all?
Report abuse
huw is right – shropshires record is rubbish – even now there website says they did 40 odd percent in 2008 but look at the article huw shows it says some councils do 64% recycling in the Uk and many more in the EU are achieving 70% plus wales and scotland are signed up to acheive 70% reycling. Shropshire Council are in the dark ages with their poor performance and low ambition, they should aim higher and recycle more then it would not need an incinerator and it would not pay any landfill tax
Report abuse
this incinerator is a false economy its only marginally economic because of
a) subsidies for the electricity from our electricity bills
b) subsidies from central government PFI capital loans from our income taxes
c) subsidies from the council tax payer who own the land it will be sited on
d) subsidies from the tax avoided on landfills which are paid for by the council from council tax payers money into the treasury coffers
So we are lead to beleive, in fact though some people think this is not economic at all and we will never know because the Council has avoided freedom of information requests to see the costs of this because of commercial confidentially. The private company who is building this thing and renting it back to the council for 27 years, does not want YOU the tax payer to know how much you are paying for it!?!? its their little secret, but rest assured, you can trust us, we are getting “best value” for your money, like councils know a thing about value for money!
the whole thing is like some deal beween cuba and the USSR to transfer pretend money around, its a typical gordon brown programme the PFI, Labour spend now, YOU pay latter, sleezy something suspicious silly socialist mess, let the market find economic solutions to the problem, there is too much tax and spend and beaurocrats involved in this
the landfill tax is a typical labour stealth tax, becayuse you dont pay direct, your council pays it for you and then takes the money off your council tax, YOU should all with hold your council tax next year, you are being ripped off by New Labour and Shropshire County Councils waste
Report abuse
its good our conservative MP is fighting this Labour stealth tax and fighting the foreign firms who steal our jobs and build these unwanted polluting machines in our green and pleasant land with their EU masters backing, thank god we have a conservative fighting our corner thats all i can say, we must stand with Daniel against the incinerator and show the people of Shrewsbury to bring down clown brown to get out of the EU, to keep the foreign firms out of Shropshire and show 2 fingers to the french, to make britain great again, to bring back weekly bin collections as David Cameron and our chairman erik pickles has promised, you need to vote blue and go green
Report abuse
i have asthma and i am concerned about the incinerator because of the health thing, its not good to be too close to even an open fire if you have asthma. Even car fumes make me cough, so how on earth can burning rubbish be acceptable?
Report abuse
its a bad idea to collected food waste huw because of the carbon footprint of the vehicles its better to compost it at home like we do!
Report abuse
i think the incinerator is a daft idea, we all know when you have a bonfire there is still loads of ash and lots of stuff that wont burn, so you’re going to just end up with an expensive white elephant which pre treats waste before it gets landfilled, POINT LESS
what we need is more recycling and they dont even collect plastics so they are doing a rubbish service, i say bring back weekly bin day, recycle all plastic and get wheels on the boxes, cut our council tax, and make those bin men put the bins back where they found them not in the middle of my drive way – then i might recycle
Report abuse
Atleast Daniel stands up for Shrewsbury, he has the backing of the vast majority of Shrewsbury folk on this issue, unlike the traitor Conservatives in Shropshire County Council who have sold out Shrewsburys independence on the Unitary Council issue and on this too. For them to take the 13 peices of silver supplied by the foreign firm who is building this death factory to transfer our rubbish from the ground to the sky they will pay for their crimes against Shrewsbury – the people will be heard at the ballot box.
Report abuse
dioxins = deadly
Report abuse
dioxins are deadly and must not be allowed in our area
Report abuse
this is a white elephant
spend the money on a better recycling system (less boxes) instead
Report abuse
those figures are old
Report abuse
good on you dan – go get em
Report abuse
surely we need more electricity production in Shropshrie with Ironbridge closing? personally i would prefer clean wind turbines but the NIMBYs wouldnt let us so i guess its rubbish burning instead
Report abuse
good for the MP, he’s got my vote for that, there are better ways of dealing with rubbish than burning it, compulsory recycling, taxing packaging from supermarkets, collecting a wider range of materials for recycling or anaerobic digestion and gasification to name some examples
Report abuse
we are against this because of the proximity to housing and the health implications
Report abuse
shropshire councils recycling is rubbish!!!!!
we need more frequent collections of more materials then they could achieve higher recycling rates and we would not need an incinerator,
Report abuse
dioxins are deadly
Report abuse
this burner is toxic and it is bad for the environment, the greenest way and cheapest way is to recycle and compost more
Report abuse
destroy the mad Brute – ENLIST!
Report abuse
the world health organisation says there is no safe levels of dioxins yet shropshire council and their contractor puts out leaflets telling us there plans to burn rubbish and pump dioxins over Shrewsbury are SAFE!
who do you beleive ?
Report abuse
we must stop this for the sake of our recycling services
if this is built there will be no more new recycling facilities
everything will be burned, shropshire will give up the race at around 50% recycling and by 2020 every other council in the UK will be acheiving 70% recycling saving more money and much greener
Report abuse
get’s him noticed thats what its all about,mp’s think we’re stupid and in most cases they are right, people think it’s all for the local community, the man on the street, it has nothing to do with being noticed does it? ambition is the drive of most mp’s the more noticed mp’s are, the higher up in their party they go, wake up! higher council tax on the way thanks to more cuts, service down but bills go up!! protest about that with results please daniel, no other business could get away with this, no wonder people are leaving the country
Report abuse
He isn’t standing up for Shrewsbury ! yet again he is telling us what he is going to do… Please can he start telling us what he has actually done ! Just more sound bites from a self pulicist !
Report abuse
SOME AMAZING “FACTS”
Report abuse
OMG – PANIC STATIONS!!
Report abuse
this incinerator is illegal because the Shropshire County Council Waste Local Plan specifically ruled out mass burn incineration at this site. They are breaking their own rules and trying to give planning permission to themselves this is a scandal
Report abuse
this is going to produce more Co2 than it creates, its going to add to the problem of fossil fuel dependancy and global warming, requiring a regualr feedstock of oil derived plastic packaging to be manufactured by the supermarkets, dumped by the public and burned by the vast incinerator. Has the council not read the Climate Change Bill, are they so worried about landfill fines, that in their haste theey forgot that they are now going to get fined for their carbon emissions too, have they surely not thought this through? Well, that’s joined up government for you, obviously the waste management people have no concept of the climate change bill and its implications for the councils budgets
Report abuse
im amazed we have not heard from Huw Peach on this local environmental issue?
Report abuse
Dioxin (a group of chemical producing from burning)is cancer causing.
We seriously dont want or need any more dioxin in our environment and this incinerator will pump loads out into a dairy farming county with lots of young lactating mums in Harlescott who are being encouraged to breast feed their babies – this is a public health disaster waiting to happen! Lets stop it now. Dixoin is deadly in high doses and even in tiny amounts its especially dangerous for pregnant women and mammals who breast feed. It gets into the milk so farmers in this area will be ruined.
In 1997, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – part of the World Health Organization – published their research into dioxins and decided they are a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning a “known human carcinogen”. It officially causes cancer.
A report released in September 1994 by the US Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had on public health in the 1960′s. According to the EPA report there appears to be no “safe” level of exposure to dioxin.
Just GOOGLE ” Seveso + dioxin “
Report abuse
what no one seems to have mentioned im amazed is that these fines of £150 per tonne are mythical, they wont happen, because at the moment you can buy landfill ‘permits’ for 10 pence per permit (ie per tonne) so say Shropshire landfills 10,000 tonnes too much, they wont face £150 fines, they will just go and buy a load of permits for 10p each and have to find a mere £1000 to landfill 10,000 tonnes… its nothing, the whole LATS scheme is pointless
why are permits worth so little ?? because there is over capacity in the system!! too much incineration space out there (especially in the West Midlands) economics of supply and demand means the price has crashed
So Shropshire Council and Veolia got there sums wrong there is no need for an incinerator in Shropshire, there is one in Wolvehampton, one on the Staffs border, one in Birmingham, and between them they more than suffice for all the rubbish in the whole west midlands!
You have been sold this on a lie people!!
Report abuse
why not just send it to the massive Veolia incinerator in Birmingham, they have planning permission already to double capacity at this exisiting site and the economies of scale would make it more cost effective for all
Report abuse
how can shropshire council planners judge the merits of a veolia planning application, they contract with them! this is corruption on par with a banana republic it must not be allowed
Report abuse
dangerous poison
Report abuse
IT WILL MAKE ALL THE LITTLE KIDS POORLY WITH THE PM 10 AND PM 2.5 WE KNOW THIS IS LINKED TO ASTHMA
Report abuse
i am against this plan, it must not be allowed to get planning permission
Report abuse