suffolkpunch
|
waste recylingHere's a press release I got today by email from FOE.
Seems a good idea to get afew more people reading.
I've heard we export most of the waste that is collectd to China or burn it here. I'd like to find out a few facts about this because soon there will be fines imposed if we don't put the right things in the recylcling boxes. But all the time the council might be mixing it again or burnign it as soon as it's collectted. Can't be right!
N.B. Cory application just been received by Stanway Parish Council.
PRESS RELEASE: 13th December 2006
Essex Friends of the Earth
01206/383123
N.B. Tomorrow, 14th December, is the same agenda for the East area Joint Waste Management meeting, 2pm Cttee Room 3 at County Hall. I attend all west and east area meetings. One journalist attended the West area meeting last Wednesday and was bemused by all the acronyms and shocked by long distance HGV mileages. No press have ever before attended the West or East meetings. Head of Waste, Nicola Beach, often says there is no press interest.....
ECC AND DISTRICT COUNCILS' 'ALMIGHTY COCK-UP' OF ESSEX WASTE PLANS
ECC admits its plans for 25 year contracts for massive 'MBT' waste disposal plants will not be built in time to comply with EU targets to reduce the landfilling of biodegradable waste and we would face fines under UK 'LATS' (Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme) targets.
Last year ECC sent out 'What a lot of rubbish' questionnaires about their new Waste Strategy. It said they would have to set up 'InVessel' (enclosed) composters for foodwaste before the hugely costly MBT plants are built, in order to avoid LATS fines.
The EU has set easy staged targets for reducing biowaste dumped in landfill because it rots down and creates methane - a potent climate change gas - and leachate. The final 2020 target for the UK is to reduce by two-thirds the tonnage of biowaste sent to landfill.
Two-thirds of municipal waste is biodegradable - mainly garden and park waste, paper, card and kitchen foodwaste - all easy to collect and recycle or compost locally. The Mersea trial recycled 60% by 2002 and had already complied with the final 2020 two-thirds reduction by collecting garden waste, paper and card.
At the 'Zero Waste Solutions' conference two weeks ago, kerbside collection expert Andy Bond said Italy and Spain have led the way with kitchen buckets of foodwaste collected in electric skips. Food buckets are already collected in Somerset, Islington and Haringey.
Now ECC have instead proposed interim 5-7year contracts for huge central 'InVessel' composting plants on the waste sites to be used for rubbish instead of food. At last Wednesday's West area Joint Waste Management committee, ECC's Head of Waste, Nicola Beach, admitted the risk of fire in these plants made insurance a problem.
Paula Whitney, Waste Co-ordinator for Essex Friends of the Earth said:
"Local 'InVessel' composting for foodwaste in each district is all Essex councils need to comply with LATS targets. This is another example of ECC's utter incompetence as they wilfully ignore the fact that separate weekly foodwaste collections is all we need added to kerbside collections of all recyclables and garden waste to comply with LATS targets.
They should be sorted at the kerb and baled and composted in each district to save transport costs, climate change gases and pollution. At the Waste Plan inquiry economist Robin Murray of Ecologika appeared for the district councils and proved these were two-thirds the cost of longterm contracts for centralised waste sorting and disposal plants."
BURNING QUESTION OF REFUSE DERIVED FUEL FROM PROPOSED MBT PLANTS
At the same meeting officers described the reactions of the waste disposal industry at the recent 'Soft Market Testing' to MBT residues. They are mainly only interested in the use of the residues of mashed and dried rubbish to burn as Refuse Derived Fuel. It is too expensive to landfill the residues.
Paula Whitney, Waste Co-ordinator for Essex Friends of the Earth, said:
"The Waste Plan permits both 'massburn' incineration of untreated rubbish, and RDF incinerators at all six Essex identified waste sites. County Cabinet members and officers have only said they are opposed to 'massburn' incinerators. The recent Rivenhall Airfield MBT proposal produced over 100,000 tonnes of RDF to burn.
MBT plants smash and dry our valuable resources, destroying them for ever. Cory and Enviros say that MBT reduces the weight of waste by a fifth. It is then more combustible. MBT and RDF plants frequently catch fire as at the notorious Byker incinerator in Newcastle. RDF incineration is extremely polluting with highly toxic ash, as proven at Byker."
ENDS
|
