You are here: About CAWAG » 4. RESIDUAL WASTE
Print this pagePrint this page

4. RESIDUAL WASTE

Last updated 19 October 2009

Both planning applications for incinerators at Ardley and Sutton Courtenay have been rejected on the grounds that they would conflict with the District Council Local Plans which aim to protect the countryside from large permanent buildings. This came after concerted campaigns by locals at both sites. The Sutton Courtenay Against the Incinerator  and Ardley Against the Incinerator websites explain the situation well. The favoured site had been the Viridor site at Ardley and the Viridor are expected to appeal against the decision.

Background

What happens to the contents of our wheelie bins? Currently it goes to landfill but due to increasingly expensive landfill taxes, Oxfordshire County Council are planning to burn it in a large-scale incinerator at either Ardley or Sutton Courtenay. More than 20,000 people across the county have signed a petition opposing incinerators, amid claims that the health implications of modern incinerators have not been properly investigated. Incineration is likely to be a major issue in the county council elections taking place in June 2009. In April, Oxfordshire MPs called on County Hall to rethink the plan to build a £100m incinerator as the answer to the county’s waste problems.

The Oxford Times reported on 21 December 2007 that the Council had reduced its shortlist of companies bidding for its 25 year waste treatment contract to only those proposing incineration. Superficially, it may sound like an attractive idea to generate electricity when burning waste material, but if most of this "waste" could be recycled many times rather than being destroyed once and for all, then it fundamentally isn't such a clever idea. Waste reduction measures to make manufacturers reduce their packaging, improvements in public recycling rates and the County Council's committment to introducing kitchen waste composting will all mean that the residual waste stream should continue to reduce. Incineration still produces ash which is landfilled, some of it would be classified as hazardous waste and would have to be taken outside the county to be disposed of.

County Councillors are debated the issue on 8 January 2008. Commercial and technical factors are part of the selection criteria but environmental factors, for example, greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to global warming are not scored. To make climate change environmental factors be taken into account, central government is now calculating a notional shadow price for carbon and including this in its financial costings of major infrastructure projects. The County Council should have taken this into account when making such a major decision. The 2007 price for emissions was £25.50 /tonne of carbon rising to £59.60 a tonne by 2050.  Assuming 1 tonne of rubbish emits 1 tonne of carbon when burnt, a 200,000 tonne incinerator would have a carbon cost of £5.1m in 2007, let alone the costs for the following 25 years. The agreement by the governments from around the world at Bali in December 2007, for deep cuts in greenhouse emissions and the Climate Change Bill with its 80% cuts in greenhouse gases by 2050 should give confidence in the likely pricing of carbon emissions.

Alternatives to incineration include Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT), such as that provided by Dorset-based New Earth Solutions (photos from recent visit); also anaerobic digestion. These processes produce considerably less greenhouse gases than incineration. According to DEFRA there are over 70 MBT facilities in operation in Europe, with over 40 in Germany. There are currently only 6 in the UK. Friends of the Earth have produced a report on waste incineration and climate change.

A major difference between incineration and MBT is in the up front and running costs. Incineration has a very large initial outlay and lower running costs but needs to have a continuous supply of material to burn over the next 25 years - there is no incentive to change public attitudes and improve recycling rates. On the other hand, MBT has lower initial costs and higher running costs, but is modular in design and therefore more flexible and can be reduced over time as the public recycle more instead of throwing valuable resources into the waste stream.


^ Top

Previous page: Worton Farms Compost
Next page: 5. CLIMATE CHANGE