Letter: Doesn’t recycling reduce need for Shrewsbury incinerator?
Tuesday 20th July 2010, 7:00AM BST.
Letter: Can anyone explain why Veolia proposes to build an incinerator at Battlefield that needs to burn 90,000 tonnes of waste per year when last year our total rubbish was 77,664 tonnes?
As the incinerator needs to keep going 24/7, of course the remaining rubbish will come from elsewhere – probably “commercial”.
Last week we all received black boxes for recycling plastic bottles; surely this means even less rubbish for landfill?
Veolia has already built a plasma gasification waste plant in the US. These convert rubbish at a very high temperature into glass substances which are then made into bricks, blocks, gravel and paper.
The rest is converted into electricity and liquid fuel. The whole process occurs in containment, so there are no emissions and is extremely cost effective – so much so it is deemed cheaper then landfill.
Veolia claims to reduce its landfill after incineration to just five per cent ash. Incinerators produce 30 per cent ash. Incinerators cause health problems and raise infant mortality rates in nearby areas.
Why on earth aren’t the people of Harlescott and Sundorne coming out in force?
Margaret Bowman
Shrewsbury
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Well they are not coming out in force for one reason it is not in their back yard.
I would also suggest have the battlefield residence ever given a fig what occurs in Harlescott or sundorne .The British public are a very selfish lot i’m afraid.
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people did come out and protest and hundreds wrote to the planning in complaint but no one listens at shropshire council they take us for granted and squander our money
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no one wants it in their backyard in oswestry or ludlow thats why theyre trying to dump it on shrewsbury
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I live in battlefield and i appreciate that my waste must go somewhere.
I don’t believe that the Environment Agency would allow the siting of an incenerator so close to an urban area if it was not totally safe.
I hope that the Council can make/save some money out of this.
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wait til you see your house price elephant
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How confident is Elephant that this 27-year PFI project will ‘make/save some money’?
Elephant should not forget that waste is a resource.
In South Shropshire food waste is used as a resource to generate energy, which does not pump carbon.
Incinerating resources when we all know we should be recycling them (or could be anaerobically digesting them) is clearly not the best way to make/save some money in the 21st century.
Is it, Elephant?
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It will surely save the Council money as they will not need to landfill which costs both through landfill tax and the propsed landfill allowance trading scheme. You will counter argue that recycling could produce the same savings however the great increases in recycling rates that we have seen in the last decade were because it was comodities that were worth something. Plastics, batteries, food waste are surely unlikely to be worth enough to recoup the cost of the collection infrastructure.
‘Incinerators’ or ‘waste to energy plants’ (dependent on which side of the argument you are on) will at least produce energy and heat. Yes it will ‘pump’ carbon but i would be interested to see how much Co2 is produced per kWh when compared to energy from the national grid. With the cost of electricity projected to increase by 15% over the next decade producing electricty makes sense. I just hope that the council will be able to share in the profits of generation rather than just allowing the PFI to take it in return for sharing the burden of market risks (as with much of the recycling that occurs today).
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Do you think a 27-year PFI incinerator project will ‘surely save the Council money’, Elephant?
Many see this incinerator as a potential white elephant at a time when cash is short and recycling rates are shooting up across the country.
Surely the dilemma we face is: ‘recycling vs landfill’, not ‘incineration vs landfill’, isn’t it?
Incineration will just stymie zero-waste policies and the expansion of recycling in Shropshire for the next 27 years.
As the new government are speaking enthusiastically about zero-waste, isn’t it now time to look at waste as a useful and valuable resource?
You said that food waste won’t be ‘worth enough to recoup the cost of the collection infrastructure’.
South Shropshire produces energy from food waste through anaerobic digestion.
Do you not think this is the model to follow if it simultaneously cuts landfill deposits and creates low-carbon energy?
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Couldn’t agree more with Andrew Finch comment – the British as a nation are great for groaning and moaning between themselves – but spineless at standing up and being counted.
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true true
aslo 90,000 is average not max, so it could be more like 110,000
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its too big and not right for our town
they can only be planning on importing waste from the west midlands to burn
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its got to be turned down on these figures there is clearly no NEED for it, need is fundamental to planning permission, you have to show its needed and this is not needed
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absolutely i live down wind of this in astely and im appauled by our councils disregard for house prices, im struggling into possible negative equity already due to the crash now they want to wipe anoth 20% off house prices in north shropshire and north shrewsbiury!! i hate them for this and i will be demanding they pay compensation for this if it goes ahead.
I agree with this letter – this is with only cans, glass and paper being recycled add in plastic and who knows in the future maybe other material and you will have barely 50000 tonnes of rubbish which does not therefore justfiy this silly little burner with its horrid chimney towering over us and blighting the area for years to come
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Your just a voter sally you dont count
get elected if you want an opinion
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it totally does that and the fact that waste is going down generally as we get greener and packaging gets smarter
there will be nothing to burn so they will have to burn rubbish from oswestry, ludlow, bridgnorth, telford, wolverhampton and stafford
not only is that unsustainable in terms of road haulage and vehicle movements and carbon but morally its not fair
why should pretty shrewsbury be a dumping ground for everyone else? let them deal with their own waste locally
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Where do you think your waste is currently buried? I’m not aware of any landfills in Shropshire except telford.
I agree that this is morally unfair of us to ship it elsewhere.
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theres a huge landfill still open in Ellsemere run by Tudor Griffiths the big hole is being quarried so its capacity gets bigger every year added to that there is the Candles Landfill site in Shropshrie in Little Wenlock by the Wrekin, plus the Bettton Abbots site in Shrewsbury has about 40 years worth of capacity left but was closed early due to neighbours complaining
there is lots of space to keep landfilling some waste in shropshrie and we always will, remember incinerator ash gets landfilled as does all the non combustable stuff, glass, ceramics, items to big to pass through the incinerator grate etc etc
aslo most inert construction waste is landfilled and no one complains because its just rubble so its not harming anyone
so actually landfill, modern landfilles where they capture all the methane for energy and have a thick lining to stop ground water pollution are actually not as bad as people make out, they are certainly greener than incineration
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theres no votes in incineration
the building looks too ugly for a town like shrewsbury in my view conservation heritage and high quality design are so important for long term tourism and business growth yet we keep knocking up cattlesheds all over shrewsbury which is ruining the town
not good
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this is going to be so controversial
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But where is the street march through shrewsbury to the council offices? sorry but people clearly are not SHOUTING loud and clear as the council cant hear.
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i’ll march on shirehall and shout if that helps but id rather they just listen to the sustainbility issues and reject the planning application
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Perhaps people prefer action to shouting, Andrew.
Nationally, households recycled only 9% of their waste 10 years ago.
Now households recycle over 38% (and rising).
That’s a big change in 10 years, isn’t it?
The Council must be aware of the growing popularity of recycling.
They must also know that the rapid increase in recycling rates and the ‘zero-waste’ aspirations voiced by environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, will be totally undermined by building incinerators.
4 general election candidates for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Kawczynski, West, Tandy and Whittaker) proclaimed their opposition to the burner.
Incinerators are being rejected across the country.
I cannot possibly imagine that our council is deaf to all this.
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you underplay it Huw in Shropshire residents recycle over 48% of their waste
this shows its not neccessary to have a burner
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south shropshire residents recycle 57.8% of their waste and cotswolds district council residents recycle 65%, in flanders in belgium they recycle 75% now that really does PROVE you dont need this incinerator
lets recycle more and stop this smoking monster ever being built
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Apologies, mary, you are right.
It’s 38% in the nation as a whole, 48% in Shropshire as a whole and over 57% in South Shropshire, which has food waste collections and an anaerobic digester.
Thanks, mary.
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It would be excellent to get to 75% recycling rates – but what would we do with the other 25%?
I’m not trying to be facetious, its an interesting question.
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MBT and then gasification are the greenest options
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I’m not familiar with MBT but surely much of what is left will be inert waste?
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San Francisco already recovers 72% of its rubbish.
According to San Francisco’s department of environment website, the city aspires to zero waste by 2020.
To do this, it is stopping things which are difficult to recycle coming into the waste stream.
The city has banned styrofoam and plastic bags, for example.
Since 2006 recycling of construction and demolition (C&D) debris is compulsory. This includes asphalt, concrete, brick, rock, soil, lumber, gypsum wallboard, cardboard and packaging, roofing material, ceramic tiles, carpeting, fixtures, plastic pipe, metals and tree stumps.
What do you think, Elephant?
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Sounds like an excellent model to follow. However I’d venture that goal is a little to progressive for shropshire.
Lets build the incinerator to plug the gap until we do reach that goal. Shouldn’t take too much longer than 27 years….
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Would you not agree that there is a real demand for change (just witness the opposition to incineration across the country) and that, with recycling rates shooting up, no target is too progressive for our council, Elephant?
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It seems they the council are deaf to this. It will be interesting to see how this pans out .May I ask what so called ACTION has taken place to ensure this will not go ahead?. I fear it is on its way .
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its an outrage to impose this on a community without any voting or consultation or referendum or election, there is no democratic mandate for this decision it must be rejected, i also think only shrewsbury members should get a vote on it
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i am opposed to this incinerator and have done the law abiding thing in writing to complain to planning etc, its not very British to protest but I would do anything legal i can to prevent this including trespass and direct action if needed and im sure Greenpeace will too
these things are very dangerous for health and bad for the environment, turning to cinders paper, cans and wood and such which could have been recycled instead
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simply answere = YES it does
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this is good pay back for them stealing our democracy and abolishing our council, now we can dump all our rubbish on them haha
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Here is a copy of my letter to the Star…
Shropshire Council has a statutory duty to reduce its carbon emissions and the planning process is clear. Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development, wants Councils to create a low carbon economy. Our “greenest government ever” wants Councils to help the UK to produce less CO2 and the planning system is key. The Climate Change Act 2008, makes it legally binding to reduce CO2 emissions because they harm human health and the environment and they cost the UK billions of pounds each year by effecting our climate.
So when confronted with a planning application for a waste incinerator in Shrewsbury, why do Shropshire Council officers recommend it gets approved? It seems so misguided. I wonder what relevant qualifications in waste management or carbon they have because they seem to have made numerous technical errors in their report regarding the alternative options and they have accepted a very weak Environmental Impact Assessment with limited analysis of CO2 pollution. They must have completely ignored the carbon impact of this development which even the applicant accepts will cause 60,000 tonnes of C02 pollution every single year!
Shropshire Council throws away 77, 000 tonnes of rubbish each year. Now by my calculations, using DEFRA’s figure of 320 kgC02 per tonne of waste landfilled, even landfilling this waste would only produce 24,000 tonnes of CO2 pollution every year. So Shropshire Councils planners are recommending a development which will triple CO2 emissions from the county! Now I think DEFRA’s figure is too high anway because most landfill emissions are these days mostly captured anyway with gas turbines on landfill sites so in actual fact it could be they are quadrupling CO2 emissions or worse. On these grounds alone the planning committee should turn this down as it has a legal duty to consider the negative impact of this development on climate change.
What we should be looking at is expanding projects like the Ludlow Biodigestor which are shown to have a massively positive impact in terms of reducing landfill, public popularity and also for CO2 emissions. If this incinerator gets built Shropshire Councils will have failed in its mission to cut costs and cut carbon emission, it will have a higher carbon footprint and a worse performance on a key national performance indicator. It will be exposed to the financial risk of being fined for its carbon emissions under the national CRC Carbon Trading scheme. If it goes ahead it will make a mockery of the waste local plan and strategic planning in Shropshire generally, its an unsustainable option environmentally and financially, the economics dont add up, it can only be funded by cutting the Ludlow biodigestor and other pro-recycling projects in Shrewsbury and in other parts of the county, that is simply a disgrace.
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good letter fair play i agree
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yes it does, clearly so we should not bother with the burner and just recycle more instead
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more to the point, we the pay master, the voter, the tax payer who is being asked to fund all this, dont want it
We are the citizens, we pay the bills, we are supposed to be listened to my our councillors, its our money, end of.
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surely its better than landfilling it and yet still people moan, what is wrong with people we are not in utopia not everyone can be bothered to recycle, so you have to burn it instead get over it or pay us to recycle and then we’d all do it
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or we could incentivise or force people to recycle? as an alternative
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good idea look at windsor and maidenhead council they have massively increased recyclign by paying people who recycle, it pays for itself because they make more out of the sale of cans, glass etc than they pay out and they cut disposal costs so everyones a winner
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or better still fine them for not recycling that will motivate more
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actually most carbon assessemnt and environmental impact studies say landfill IS better than mass burn incineration environmentally speaking
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this must not be allowed to happen, its too risky financially and ecologically
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this is risky finanically and environmentally it must not be allowed
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its disgusting that people think this can just be rammed through against the will of the voters and they are wrecklessly abusing the planning system – for the sake of fair due process this should have to go to an independent planning inspector – how can it be right for the council to decide its own planning application? its corruption of the highest order and i think our MP is right to demand it gets called in by the Sec of state
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i am against this because its not sustainable in the times of declining waste arising and increased recycling there is not enough rubbish in the whole of shropshire to feed this beast so they will inevitably be burning all the paper and convenient they are now collecting plastic at the same time which is made of oil and burns really well!
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The incinerator is perfectly safe and SHOULD be located in Shrewsbury!
Where else would the people of Shrewsbury want it located? Telford perhaps?
No its only right that if you make the mess you clean up the mess.
I wonder how many Shrewsbury people have campaigned against Telford power station in ironbridge or whether they just enjoy the power from said station without the pollution unlike the poor people of Telford
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What if the ‘mess’ that people make is seen to be valuable, Y Mab?
What if more and more people across the country reject the idea of incinerating the mess to useless ash and see the value of getting value out of the ‘mess’?
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nothing can be PROVEN to be safe, what the health experts say is if well managed its “not dangerous” that is a very different thing for being “safe”, crossing a road is not dangerous if you look where youre going but hundreds dies on roads each year so it clearly isnt exactly safe either is it?
Get it?
would you want one in your area? for your kids to breath in. No you wouldnt, why? because its not “safe”
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recycling rules!
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SO RECYCLE MORE THEN AND YOU WONT HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THE FUMES FROM THE BURNER, PEOPLE OF HARLESCOTT AND SUNDORNE TAKE NOTE, DO YOU ALL RECYCLE EVERYTHING YOU POSSIBLY CAN?? DO YOU REALLY??
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i would say yes it does obviously if we can get recycling rates up to 60-70% range like some other councils do then there will such a small quantity of residual rubbish left over that it would not justify construction of waste treatment facilities in its own right and would be affordable to just landfill the tiny remaining fraction or sent it to Wolverhamption which is only a short haul and has a massive incinerator with ample capacity for Shrewsburys rubbish
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YES OF COURSE IT DOES, SO COME ON SALOPIANS RECYCLE MORE AND YOU WONT HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS OR BREATH THE FUMES
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#27
[sent it to Wolverhamption which is only a short haul and has a massive incinerator with ample capacity for Shrewsburys rubbish]
Do you think that is far enough john downing?
What if the ash cloud in Wolverhampton blows over Shrewsbury or would it stop at Telford first so therefore doesn’t matter?
[What if the ‘mess’ that people make is seen to be valuable, Y Mab?]
What if it isn’t Huw?
Are you prepared to hang on to your yogurt pots until they are deemed recyclable?
Or are you happy for them to go to the apparently huge Wolverhampton incinerator?
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i agree – waste is declining in the UK so if there is only 7/9 th of enough rubbish to justify this burner then there will definately not be enough in 10 years time
in 30 years time waste will be completely different, according to DEFRA and the government we will be Zero Waste by then – so what is left to burn?
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we dont want it here, and i wouldnt wish it on anyone else, there must be better alternatives
please
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yes yes yes
we dont need one now, let alone in 10 years time when we will be recycling even more
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there is no doubt that the boom in recycling in recent years has ruined the county councils business case for this, they assumed in the 90′s when this was being designed that there would be ongoing exponential growth in commercial and household waste in the area and lower levels of recycling, it was a perfectedly valid assumption at the time so im not blaiming anyone, it was cautious and risk averse as you would expect from prudent public sector accountants but in the end it was wrong. now the future turned out different and there is no need for this burner. but what i would criticise them for is rather than withdraw this plan and revert to plan B they stubbornly push on because they cant accept their mistake. how can the business case stack up to build something so much bigger than needed, the whole mathematics of this has changed and this has fatally altered the economics. it just doesnt add up, it would be like shrewsbury town building a 90,000 seater stadium yet only getting 10,000 fans every saturday, no one in their right mind would think this is going to be a good investment for the taxpayer, end it now and save the money for lower counicl tax for everyone or invest in even more recycling and therefore even less waste disposal costs
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yes it does, its already reduced the amount of rubbish to such a point that the incinerator is not needed and its contually improving and undermining the case for burning
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good point, isnt demonstrating need fundamentalto obtaining planning permission? how has the applicant shown the need?
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Its too modern looking and industrial – its just not suitable for our rural fringe / medieval battlefield / historic area
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#35 Quite so sundorne danny, we should burn anything (one) we don’t like on a huge pyre like we had to during the foot and mouth eperdemic.
There problem solved!
A truly mediaeval method of disposing of not so mediaeval waste.
We’ll be the envy/laughing stock of Europe!
We could dig a huge moat around the town then put the rubbish in that. Hang on we’ve sort of done that already have’nt we?
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thats just a silly comment eva, you can be against burning rubbish in an incinerator without being stuck in the Dark Ages, actually incineration is the old technology, the more Advanced Thermal Treatments by their very name are the future of waste management, pyrolisis, gasification and anaerobic digestion is how our waste will be treated for the 21st century, sadly Shropshire Council signed this contract years ago back in the days of Shropshire County Council and the technology choice reflects that, its out of date now and so it should be stopped
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Im against the incinerator on health ground and visual impact too. Also what is going to be left to burn once they offer plastic and food recycling ?
The problem is not everyone joins in with the current service, so rather than burn it the council should spend just a tiny bit of that money on more education, awareness, promotion of the service and also look at rewards and enforcement to coerce more residents into recycling more. For only a few hundred grand you could run a major education programme in the county and get thousands of tonnes of extra recycling going on, yet they plan to spend half a billion; £500,000,000 over the next 25 years just turning all that material into dust, they are ignorant idiots and i would suggest a new councillor or waste manager is needed because if you dont realise the benefits of getting people to recycle more you should be sacked
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i dont want it near my land, who would buy meat grazed in fields with dioxins and acid rain on it, its crazy it will kill my business
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i m disgusted about this burner its too close to the town and will blight the neighbourhood effecting all the house prices in north shrewsbury and even down wind in wem
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wat we need in shrewsbury is weekly collection of rubbish and better recycling for plastics not a bloddy incinerator in the middle of town. its a stupid idea from stupid people on their fatcat pensions they are not listening to me and my mates down the pub who are propr local workign folks who think this is bloody stupid sack em all
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this is an embarrasment to the council it shows they are not really in control of their own waste services having outsourced them through a PFI contract they are no longer running them, so the question has to be why cant we just pay veolia direct for the service, cut out the whole political interference and massive management costs and then as paying customers we will be able to influence the shape of the service we get and have weekly collections and get rid of this stupid incinerator which will ruin bings heath and all the surrounding villages
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if this carbuncle gets built it will ruin that area for tourism and such, i was in the dog in the lane pub in astley the other day thinking how pretty the countryside is round there, we cycled all round the lanes and upper battlefield and theres caravan parks and medieval churches and wonderful scenary there, some of the houses are really posh and the countryside looks fantastic, how can they want to pollute that area, it will be a disaster for the local economy which is based on being pretty and attracting people in for tourism and outdoor recreation
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What a waste of public money… Its boys with their toys, high tech engineered solution for everything when what is actually needed is a bit of public awareness to get more recycling projects off the ground. You cant just keep building your way out of trouble, its the same with energy and power stations or with roads and congestion, at some point you have to stop engineering expensive short term quick fixes and get to the root of the problem, manage demand, reduce the need, encourage people to be more efficient, and solve the problem long term which in this case is about more regulation of packaging and more education and awareness of recycling both of which are cheaper, easier and greener than incineration.
Hello – recession – cut backs! Are these people blind, deaf or dumb!?
Come on they must read the paper or do they live in a bubble? Surely they must accept its inevitable that this cannot be built, they are wishing that money will grow on trees or something.
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the councillors voting on this decision must remember they are our servants and they’ll never get elected again if they try to ram this thing through
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Yes we have, eva, and it wasn’t sustainable.
Time for new thinking.
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It’s now full of all your yogurt pots Huw!
What about if the incinerator was built in reclaimed red brick, much like the listed chimney at the maltings in Belle Vue? Would it be more acceptable?
The arguments against the incinerator because the building is too modern and Shrewsbury is a mediaeval town are quite frankly a joke.
Shrewsbury is a town in the 21st century which has like many other towns ancient buildings which are thankfully protected and preserved. Those buildings served a purpose at the time they were built and can still be used now for offices shops and homes today, fortunately.
If the incinerator is not the best solution to our waste producing society then aesthetics are not the reason to stop it.
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eva, what do you think of the Telford PAIN campaign’s successful anti-incinerator arguments?
http://www.shropshirestar.com/latest/2009/12/08/joy-as-burner-bid-is-binned/
Aren’t these the ideas that you should be focusing on?
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