Cardiff, Caerphilly, Newport,
Monmouthshire, Vof G Councils want a big burner which Ties them into a very expensive PFI for 25 YEARS to burn waste rather than improve recycling rates. The Prosiect Gwyrdd councils are striving towards a feeble 65% recycling by 2025 with at least a further 5% being ASH from the incinerator. Many other councils have already exceeded 70% recyling rates.
“Prosiect Gwyrdd” = Scam Green = WAG Welsh Waste Policy = incinerators
Showing posts with label incinerator cardiff bay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label incinerator cardiff bay. Show all posts
Summary details of case
The erection of an energy from waste facility with combined heat and power plant and ancillary offices at Trident Park, Glass Avenue, off Ocean Way, Cardiff.
Planning Inspectorate Contacts
The Case Officer is Dawn McGowan
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The Cardiff Planning Committee rejected the Viridor application for an incinerator today by seven votes to two with one abstention.
This is great news and is a tribute to all the hard work we have put in over the past months in leafleting and lobbying.
The Splott Councillors, Gavin Cox and Martin Holland are over the moon.
However, the reason given for the committee rejecting the application could have been stronger and Viridor are likely to lodge an appeal to the Assembly. so we will need to keep working on this to ensure that the appeal is rejected.
KEY OMISSIONS IN OFFICERS’ REPORT ON VIRIDOR/SPLOTT INCINERATOR
......Bottom Ash is not inert! Most of it is TOXIC Ash!...
.............Viridor’s claim to combined heat-and-power is false!.....
Viridor’s Incinerator bottom ash (IBA)
Viridor’s ES is faulty in saying the IBA is “inert”
they have failed to address the issue of some or all IBA likely to be classed hazardous
their claim to recycle the bottom ash in construction projects locally (or SE Wales) is unsound.
Their proposals do not meet requirements to minimise the production of hazardous wastes
Sending large tonnages of ash for landfilling outside the region conflicts with TAN21 policy (proximity principle).
Viridor’s claim to combined heat-and-power is false
There are no rational uses for the immense 70 MW year-round with no back-up supply in the event of breakdown and maintenance down-time.Nor does Viridor have any real plan to lay pipes to actually supply any of the heat at all.
Officers have failed to apply the Waste Hierarchy
The current Hierarchy (Waste Framework Directive 2008) defines incineration of waste as “disposal” unless it has efficient energy recovery.Viridor’s is very inefficient.Cardiff’s policy says (SPG paras 4.6-4.7) “All proposals for the development of waste management facilities across the County should conform with the principle of the waste hierarchy.Waste disposal falls at the bottom of the hierarchy…”
• it represents the BPEO for residual waste, taking into account transportation;
• it has been designed so as not to inhibit increasing recycling and composting rates at a later date (in the expectation that the Assembly Government increases the targets further);
• it includes combined heat and power wherever practicable
Viridor clearly do not meet the third bullet, they don’t meet the second (cf. the 90% recycling target for commercial and industrial waste, yet Viridor want a huge 175 000tonnes pa) and haven’t met the first bullet, though they claim to.
BPEO decision
The current waste policy (Cardiff’s SPG 2006, citing Wise About Waste, WAG 2000) requires open BPEO assessment of waste options, not just running a computer programme.It would properly consider the wider environmental consequences of options, including their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate impacts.The BPEO would include the impacts of toxic residues in incinerator ashes.The Ireland study[1] shows how it can and should be done, comparing with MBT options and finding the latter much better.
CONCLUDE
● serious errors and omissions in Viridor’s Environmental Statement mean that it cannot be truthfully approved as under Recommendation 1.
● the Officers’ report does not cover Cardiff’s Waste policy in the 2006 SPG -send it back!
ANNEX – Viridor’s claim to BPEO is false
Cardiff’s SPG (para. 4.3) says TAN 21 requires that proposals for dealing with waste should be subject to Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO). BPEO is a procedure which establishes the waste management option that provides most benefit or least harm to the environment.
Viridor’s ES says
‘BPEOs have been undertaken at national, regional and local levels to demonstrate the suitability of different technologies.’
… The proposed EfW facility is therefore consistent with the BPEO assessments at all levels.’
Yet it merely compares the climate change impact of its proposed incinerator with that of landfill. (Sections 6.9 and 17 of their Environmental Statement). As can be seen from their Figure 4, it merely compares what would be a very bad climate change impact alternative with the worst one.It has
# no use of the waste heat – the major part of available energy – despite saying it could be used
# huge tonnages of bottom ash, potentially hazardous, to be disposed of off-site
# failure to compare with rational options
The SEWales RWP shortlists incineration as a BPEO. It does so by employing the WRATEsoftware ‘tool’.
The BPEO (Best Practicable Environmental Option) process was established by the Royal Commission (RCEP) and their definition of it adopted by government.It is a
judgementbased process and “must not be allowed to become a technocratic process… the output of which is then used to steamroller a sceptical public into options which they dislike or distrust... it is a "consultative decisionmaking process" … this must be adhered to, including making the use of any model available to the general public wherever practicable (House of Commons 2002 – see Annex below).
The 2002 model was ‘WISARD’, now superseded by ‘WRATE’.The same strictures apply against WRATE as made by the Select Committee and the government response (Annex).Yet WAG officials have used WRATE as a ‘prescriptive device’ to justify their exclusion of MBT for residual waste. This misuse took place in the Regional Waste Plan reviews (2007-8) and in preparing the “Future Directions…” paper for the waste review (see the EA’s support paper[2]).
In respect of climate impacts, WRATE gives a very different result to Eunomia's modelling, which follows the proper international prescription (IPCC[3]):
if incineration of waste is used for energy purposes, both fossil and biogenic CO2 emissions should be estimated
Proper lifecycle calculations (Eunomia 2008[4]) following the IPCC prescription and adopting real efficiency of biostabilisation found that “scenarios using incineration were amongst the poorest performing” while those using MBT ranked among the best.
Government Response to EFRA, March 2002
Selection Techniques for Waste Management Options Recommendation
20. We agree with the Committee that computer models should not be used as prescriptive devices to provide 'the answer'. The Environment Agency's WISARD software is a good example. It produces information on the environmental impacts of different strategies for managing municipal solid waste determined by the user. It provides users with an assessment of the life cycle impacts of these strategies to allow them to be compared and to assist in determining the BPEO. It can therefore aid, but cannot make, decisions on the BPEO.
[1]Eunomia Research & Consulting and TOBIN Consulting Engineers, Meeting Ireland's Waste Targets - the Role of MBT Final report for Greenstar http://www.greenstar.ie/docs/Eunomia_MBT.pdf. 2008.
[2] Lifecycle Assessment of Municipal Waste Targets, Environment Agency Wales, 2007
[3] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2006, “Chapter 5: Incineration and Open Burning of Waste,” 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, p. 5.5, National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme, Pub: IGES, Japan.
[4]Greenhouse Gas Balances of Waste Management Scenarios, Eunomia ConsultingReportfor the Greater London Authority, 2008
Funding from the Assembly Government announced today could mean a massive incineration plant coming to south east Wales.
The £7.8 million a year going to five south east Wales councils, grouped together under the Prosiect Gwyrdd banner, has been feted as a funding boost for an ‘energy-from-waste' plant.
Friends of the Earth Cymru campaigner, Haf Elgar, said:
"There's a danger that the so-called 'Prosiect Gwyrdd' could become Project Greenwash.
"This public money looks set to pay for a massive, over-sized incinerator to come to south east Wales.
"Incineration is not green. It might produce energy, but it's inefficient, and possibly even worse for the environment than landfill. A recent study [1] has shown that incineration emits more greenhouse gas than any other waste disposal option.
"Incineration hits recycling rates, produces hazardous waste, and large plants demanding waste from across the region mean hundreds more lorries on the roads every day.
"And in these changing times, councils signing up to 25 year contracts of producing waste is just bad business sense.
"There is much the Assembly Government can do to help councils with their waste management. But sponsoring these polluting monsters should be no part of it."
Funding from the Assembly Government announced today could mean a massive incineration plant coming to south east Wales.
The £7.8 million a year going to five south east Wales councils, grouped together under the Prosiect Gwyrdd banner, has been feted as a funding boost for an ‘energy-from-waste' plant.
Friends of the Earth Cymru campaigner, Haf Elgar, said:
"There's a danger that the so-called 'Prosiect Gwyrdd' could become Project Greenwash.
"This public money looks set to pay for a massive, over-sized incinerator to come to south east Wales.
"Incineration is not green. It might produce energy, but it's inefficient, and possibly even worse for the environment than landfill. A recent study [1] has shown that incineration emits more greenhouse gas than any other waste disposal option.
"Incineration hits recycling rates, produces hazardous waste, and large plants demanding waste from across the region mean hundreds more lorries on the roads every day.
"And in these changing times, councils signing up to 25 year contracts of producing waste is just bad business sense.
"There is much the Assembly Government can do to help councils with their waste management. But sponsoring these polluting monsters should be no part of it."
ENVIRONMENTAL group Friends of the Earth Cymru is calling for a tougher line on waste incineration in Wales.
Campaigners have called on Environment Minister Jane Davidson to take a tougher line on the burning of waste as she drafts a new waste policy for Wales. Waste incineration is one of the many ways of disposing of waste being considered by South Wales local authorities, as they move away from using landfill sites.
Haf Elgar, campaigner for Friends of the Earth Cymru, said:“Incineration produces dangerous hazardous waste, not green energy as is often claimed.
“There are also new developments which suggest that incineration is environmentally worse than landfill.
“The UK Committee on Climate Change has said that anaerobic digestion and mechanical and biological treatment have ‘the least overall greenhouse gas emissions or greatest greenhouse gas savings’.
“But incineration has, in a recent study, been assessed as the highest greenhouse gas emitting waste disposal option. We welcome the Assembly Government’s announcement for more funding for anaerobic digestion, and the increase in local authorities collecting food waste for anaerobic digestion in Wales.”
PlAID Cymru AM Leanne Wood has voiced her opposition to plans to build a waste incinerator in Cardiff.
The facility, which would be built in Ocean Way, Tremorfa, if approved, is one solution to South Wales’ landfill shortage currently being examined by five councils and dubbed Prosiect Gwyrdd.
The Viridor Waste Managment plant would burn 350,000 tonnes of waste a year.
Ms Wood, who represents Cardiff and is Plaid’s sustainability spokeswoman, raised the issue during Finance Questions to Minister Andrew Davies in the Senedd.
She said: “The plant will require vast amounts of waste on an ongoing basis to make it viable. The risk is that this will reduce incentives for recycling. We should all be recycling more, not less.
“There are fears the incinerator will produce harmful emissions, and the level of energy produced will be inefficient.”
Finance minister Andrew Davies said environment minister Jane Davidson would update the Plaid AM on plans for the incinerator.
Dec 11 2008 by David James, South Wales Echo WRONG WRONG WRONG
Consideration of Environmental Statements and EIA planning applications The timeframe for dealing with the application is extended to 16 weeks from the date of receipt of the ES, although this can be extended with the applicant’s agreement.Cardiff planning officer A Bates said that there was plenty of time to write in - while the application is live -still happy to receive letters and views!!!!
Cardiff Friends of the Earth have accused the developer, Viridor, of timing its planning application for an energy-from-waste plant for the Christmas period to avoid public objection.
Spokeswoman Heather Webber said: “Hauling huge amounts of rubbish around the country to be burnt is not a sensible, or sustainable, waste solution.
“This incinerator is massively over-sized, and would release dangerous emissions and increase congestion and pollution.”
Residents must submit comments to the city council’s planning committee by Christmas Eve.
Developer Viridor is hoping to win the contract to deal with the waste from five South Wales local authorities, including Cardiff.
from someone who went down to the meeting this afternoon.
Prosiect Gwyrdd item was pretty short - about 5 minutes. The main action was before that and was a very long heated discussion about the proposed school closures and related loss of open space in East Cardiff, and involving a lot of shouting from some members of the public attending.
The Prosiect Gwyrdd OBC recommendations were passed, i.e. for the project to continue along the lines in the report
Margaret Jones presented : - the OBC is an interim document - the project is of such a scale that it will need to come back to the Exec and also go to full Council next year - no decision taken on site or technology - irritated at misrepresentation of the project inside the Council and elsewhere (i.e. "PG = incinerator"
- the main point of the presentation was to repeat impatience with WAG for not clarifying funding position - this was supported by all councillors present - there were no questions about the content of the report
A plan to develop a waste-to-energy plant in Aberdeenshire has sparked a massive protest campaign over fears it could cause health problems.
More than 4,500 people living in and around Peterhead have signed a petition against the £50million plant which developers Buchan Combined Heat and Power Ltd claim will burn a third of the north-east of Scotland's rubbish and produce enough power for approximately 10,000 homes. Six hundred letters of objection have been submitted against the proposal.
Residents are concerned it will spew a deadly mixture of chemicals over the area, causing increased rates of cancer, heart attacks, clinical depression, autism, asthma and coronary heart disease. Their fears have been fuelled by a retired GP from South Wales, Dick Van Steenis, who claims research into similar plants in other parts of the country has demonstrated an alarming rise in serious illnesses in surrounding communities.
'The company's own environmental statement says it will emit arsenic and dioxins which are highly carcinogenic. One of the main things it emits apart from mercury, arsenic, cobalt, and lead is particulate matter,' said John Askey, a father of two who organised the petition. 'Particulate matter are very fine particles. In a smog you get very big particles, but it's the fine ones you can't see that cause an awful lot of illnesses like heart disease, eczema, asthma and cancer.
'Buchan already has the highest cancer, heart disease and stroke rate in the whole of Grampian, so we don't want this incinerator adding to our woes by blowing these fine particles over Peterhead.' Concerns about the plant have also been raised by NHS Grampian and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency which both questioned the suitability of the proposed location of the plant on an industrial site outside Peterhead.
In a submission to Aberdeenshire Council's planning department, NHS officials said they were concerned that the incinerator will be located right beside a children's nursery and less than a mile from the small community of Invernettie.
However, Buchan CHP insists that, if its plant goes ahead, there will be no significant risk to human health, and its director, Glenn Jones, has insisted that any emissions will be 'no more dangerous than those from a domestic car or a wood-burning stove'.
The poor are dying younger because they are being systematically poisoned By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 20th June 1999.
Why do the poor die younger than the rich? There are many explanations, and most of them involve the fecklessness of the poor. They eat the wrong food, smoke too much and exercise too little. Recently we learnt that they may not be solely to blame for their own misfortunes: cancer treatment, the Cancer Research Campaign revealed last month, is far shoddier for people on low incomes. But while all these factors are doubtless important, one of the most deadly killers has been largely overlooked. The poor die younger than the rich, new research suggests, because they are being systematically poisoned.
Dr Dick van Steenis is a retired GP who, in 1994, was asked to look at the possible health effects of pollution from power stations in South Wales.
New FOE report
.......and Professor Dr Paul Connett Ph.D on zero waste here
..............................Right now the landfill surcharge is driving the building of massive incinerators
UK is moving from worst solution to the next worse solution i.e. moving from the bottom of the waste hierarchy up.
What we need are financial incentives to encourage communities to move to the top of the waste hierarchy –i.e. towards sustainability. Perhaps........
INCINERATION 20 pounds/ton surcharge
40 pounds/ton surcharge on ash
LANDFILLING 40 pounds/ton surcharge
The Governent is pushing councils in one direction - incineration
Charles Clover in The Sunday Times derided the government for pushing councils towards incineration as a solution for waste disposal. Previously incineration plants had been opposed because of fears of toxic emissions, an issue now largely dealt with by better burners. Clover said incineration should be opposed: "It starves recycling industries of raw materials and prevents a cheaper, greener business model from succeeding."
UK Health research here Effect on health unknown here Welsh councils' incinerator trend Environment minister Carwyn Jones has said the development of incinerators in Wales is ineitable.24-3-07 AN INCINERATOR close to Swansea's prestigious SA1 development is being investigated for allegedly pumping out too many harmful fumes...Residents...have been told that potentially-cancer-causing dioxin emissions were found to have been three times the limit when tested in December last year. Waste Burning Could Be Lethal (from Oxford Mail) Incinerators - are WMD's? Health Impacts of Incinerators here UK without incineration network here
A report from Friends of the Earth reveals the huge extent of the pollution and financial losses caused by our love of landfill and incinerationmore...
Wales Climate Camp
The Minister depicted Prosiect Gwyrdd as "producing much needed energy" that would "use waste in the best possible way", despite the consortium claiming their Business case for procuring a ‘solution’ for residual waste is technology-neutral
WAG Approval of the business case and subsidy for Prosiect Gwyrdd, 27 Jan. 2009:
New funding boost for next generation energy-from-waste plant in south Wales
Why are incinerator residues not counted in the recycling/composting indicator?hereClassification of Incinerator Bottom Ash (updated 29 Nov. 2008)
Facebook Groups
No Incinerator in Cardiff Bay here
- Councils Scam Gwyrdd
Scottish Parliament: National Waste Strategy
Scottish Parliament vote against large-scale incinerators -The vote in the Scottish Parliament, carried because the Tories voted with the Greens and SNP. Just one Lib-Dem supported, 6 Labour absentees.
If burning up to a quarter of Scotland's municipal waste is "a failure of the imagination" how much bigger a failure is the proposed Welsh strategy with burning up to 37% proposed !
It appears that the governing SNP had a change in mind when confronted with 25% in their Minister's plan.
*S3M-4348.1 Scottish Parliament: National Waste Strategy (11 Jun 2009)
11 Jun 2009 ... Greens win Holyrood Vote against "Landfill in the Sky". Parliament today endorsed Green opposition to plans for a new generation of ... there should be no necessity for any large-scale waste-to-energy plants to be built ...
Newport’s cabinet gave the go ahead to allow an Assembly-owned site on Tatton Road to be considered for the project. The site, in the industrial area of Queensway Meadows, is likely to be the only publicly owned site earmarked for the plant.
Covering Letter
