Viridor's proposed incinerator in Cardiff Bay

To: Your local councillor

From: Cardiff Friends of the Earth

Date: 3^rd November

Subject: Viridor's proposed incinerator in Cardiff Bay

The proposal

Viridor Waste Management are poised to submit a planning application for a large “energy from waste” incinerator plant in Cardiff Bay. According to their Community Consulation Brief the proposed plant will be situated on Trident Park, between Ocean Way and the Docks and designed to process 350,000 tonnes of waste per year.

Our concerns

l Over-sized – 2.5 times the amount of residual waste Cardiff produces

In 2007/2008, the total amount of residual waste from Cardiff was 133,000 tonnes[1]; the total from five local authorities[2] in the region is still less than 330,000tonnes[3]. With rates of recycling set to increase this leaves the question of where the shortfall would come from. Viridor imply that the household waste could be topped up using business waste but incinerators can't cope with too high a proportion of business waste[4]. This means the waste would have to be either diverted from recycling or sourced from further afield still which is against the proximity principle.

l Transport – more than 100 trucks per day on Cardiff's roads

In order to meet the demands of the incinerator, over 1000tonnes of waste per day would have to be transported to the site - this could result in over 100 trucks per day having to be accommodated on Cardiff's roads. This amount of traffic would have a significant impact on congestion and result in a corresponding increase in pollution from the vehicles.

l Toxic waste – 120,00 tonnes of waste ash per year

Every year the incineration process would produce about 17,500tonnes of toxic fly ash[5] which would have to be transported to a hazardous waste site in Cheltenham; and around 100,000tonnes of bottom ash[6] which contains leachable metals. Although theoretically the bottom ash can be recycled as secondary aggregate, only half the current production of bottom ash finds a market, meaning the rest would need to be landfilled.

l Emissions – NOx, ultrafine particles, dioxins

Incineration not only releases high levels of CO₂ but also NOx and ultrafine particles. In addition, emissions are not limited during start-up and close-down when high levels of dioxins have been found to be emitted.

Alternatives

l Incinerators are a very inefficient way of recovering energy from waste ~20% electrical efficiency. Other residual waste treatments such as anaerobic digestion generate energy more efficiently and the greatest energy efficiency of all would be achieved by maximising recycling.

l Due to the long waste contracts associated with incinerators, they are very inflexible. Modular and flexible alternatives are available – able to adapt to changing volumes and composition of waste as recycling improves and increases. These include Mechanical & Biological Treatment (MBT), Anarobic Digestion, Autoclaving, Gasification and Pyrolysis.

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[1] http://dissemination.dataunitwales.gov.uk/webview/index.jsp?language=en

[2] Cardiff, Newport, Vale of Glamorgan, Caerphilly and Monmouthshire – members of Prosiect Gwyrdd

[3] Ibid

[4] http://www.ukwin.org.uk/?p=117 in Sheffield, too much business waste caused a Veolia plant operational inefficiencies and they had to resort to sourcing household residual waste from further afield

[5] About 5% of waste input

[6] About 25-30% waste input

News

Expert - 'No incinerator design can remove dangerous nanoparticles’ By John Feeney

Kevin Lawlor, project manager at College Proteins, arrives at the Newgrange Hotel where the inquiry was adjourned after five acres on the proposed site turned out to be owned by a local farmer.

There is no safe level of exposure to fine particulate air pollution, University of Ulster professor, Vyvyan Howard, told the College Proteins oral hearing last week.

The toxicological research academic claimed evidence was emerging that no current incinerator design sufficiently abated dangerous nanoparticles from potential emissions that would emerge from the proposed Nobber plant, and recent European studies pointed to such emissions as a source for between three to six per cent of deaths in larger urban centres.

The lungs and blood/brain barrier had been shown to be the routes these nanoparticles could penetrate, all of them man-made chemicals which human evolution gave our normal defence mechanisms no history of tackling, said the Coleraine professor. There were findings to suggest they caused protein misfolding, making them toxic.

The potential for such defective proteins contributing to the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease was the basis of the EU grant of €2.5 million his group was currently researching, he added.