Parties must tell us where they stand on Incineration

Parties must tell us where they stand; VIEWPOINTS

South Wales Echo April 1, 2011

ACCORDING to a Plaid Cymru spokeswoman ("Plaid urged to stand 
by waste pledge", March 26), the party remains committed to 
opposing waste incineration.
Maximum recycling, composting and other advanced processes
 are indeed the genuinely "green" alternatives.
Meanwhile, residents and local businesses in Cardiff face the
prospect of a huge incinerator being built in Trident Park, 
spewing out 350,000 tonnes of burning waste and pollutants 
all your round, ferried in by daily fleets of lorries - courtesy of 
the Plaid Cymru and LibDem-controlled Cardiff County Council.
And all this to the profit of big business, subsidised by local
taxpayers through the humorously named "Prosiect Gwyrdd" 
(Green Project).
Now that the National Assembly's petitions committee and 
the Local Government Ombudsman for Wales are considering 
widespread local objections, I have a question for all candidates
and parties in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
Before polling day, will you make your position clear on building
giant waste incineration schemes next to residential areas - are you 
for or against? ¦ Robert Griffiths Chair, Cardiff Against the Incinerator

Copyright 2011 Western Mail and Echo LtdAll Rights Reserved
South Wales Echo

Please reply to cardiffagainsttheincinerator@gmail.com 

 Have you signed yet? e-Petition:
No to Incineration

We call upon the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh 
Government to revise its planning policy and policy on residual waste
 to provide a presumption against the building of incinerators, 
which send most of the carbon from waste into the air as CO2,
 emit ultra-fine particles that can be damaging to health, and create 
toxic ash. We believe that incineration is bad for the environment 
and bad for people

Viridor appeal case

STOP the Viridor INCINERATOR again!

Viridor Waste Management Ltd has appealed against the refusal of planning permission by Cardiff Council for a massive incinerator! The appeal goes to the Welsh Assembly.Viridor incinerator appeal to be decided by public enquiry and a site visit from planning inspectorate.

TAKE ACTION today...

Write to the Welsh Assembly Planning Inspectorate
Crown Buildings Cardiff CF10 3NQ
wales@pins.gsi.gov.uk

Objections by 24 December 2009 quoting appeal reference
APP/Z6815/A/09/2113747/WF
very inconvienient timing for the unsuspecting public...

Viridor are planning a massive incinerator in Trident Park, between Ocean Way and the Docks.This will burn 350,000 tonnes of waste a year.

Some points to raise again..

It is too big! Burning waste from all over South Wales
Big incinerator contracts for large amounts of waste have been
shown to reduce recycling rates.

260 more lorries per day on Cardiff Roads!
All day increasing pollution and congestion!

Greenhouse gases - ultra fine particles and dioxins
Incinerators have the highest emissions of harmful substances compared with other waste management options. It produces of poisonous dioxins -An incinerator of this sort has toxic emissions, particularly ultrafine particles (nanoparticles)

Toxic Waste - 120,000 tonnes of waste ash per year!
One third of waste will become ASH. 17,500 tonnes of that will be
toxic and need special hazardous waste disposal.
What do we do with the 17,500 tonnes of hazardous toxic ash?
They expect to send it to England at great cost to dumps with huge local opposition.

NOT GREEN Energy
Generating energy from burning waste is NOT efficient or renewable

Can we use the heat from the Viridor incinerator?
There can only be a WASTE of heat! There are no realistic uses for the immense 70 MW heat, year-round with no back-up supply in the event of breakdown and maintenance down-time. No evidence that Viridor has any real plans to lay costly pipes needed to actually supply any of the heat at all. Against WAG policy

ALTERNATIVES
Waste should be dealt with locally using MBT (mechanical, biological, treatments,) which produces soil and reclaims recyclables.
We need to MAXIMISE recycling and composting

TAKE ACTION write a letter of objection

Write to Welsh Assembly, Planning Inspectorate, Crown Buildings
Cardiff CF10 3NQ

Objections by 24 December 2009 quoting appeal reference
APP/Z6815/A/09/2113747/WF

free guide to appeals from inspectorate..029 2082 3889


Viridor have been encouraged by the promotion of
Project Gwyrdd(project green)

Will it save money building a massive incinerator?

No, it may end up costing us a fortune and tied in to a contract councils can’t get out of.

Viridor cannot build their costly giant incinerator unless they get a long-term (25 yr) contract from Cardiff and the other Councils, who would then not try to meet their recycling and residual waste targets. This has already happened to some English Councils, who find their predecessors signed contracts for more waste than is now being produced, so send their recycling collections too or pay a penalty. Having an incinerator would actually prevent increasing recycling and composting rates at a later date.

FACTS

• giant incinerator 350 000t/yr, over-sized even for the 5 Scam Gwyrdd councils

• domestic waste is decreasing with more recycling,

• residual waste to reduce to 130 000 tons/yr for the 5-authority region

• other waste facilities in other Council areas could and should come much sooner

• Viridor said half their waste for burning would be industrial/commercial – but it’s not needed as their recycling is increasing fast (avoiding the high incineration costs).

Is the Viridor incinerator efficient?

It is so Very inefficient – it is called waste ‘disposal’ under European standard

No Again to Viridor incinerator!

No surprise then Viridor has decided to appeal about the incinerator. Their press release makes a clear link between the Cardiff incinerator and Prosiect Grywdd - which is the agreement amongst some south east wales local authorities to combine their waste problem. Viridor wants to drive it all through Cardiff in lots of lovely dirty lorries... probably through Bute park!!

Scotland aims for 70% real cycling, 25% cap on incineration;

Wales aims for 63% real recycling, 37% cap on incineration. Assembly politicians should be ashamed of what WAG is foisting on Wales in the guise of ‘ambitious recycling’. Worrying promotion of incineration 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 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 (www.prosiectgwyrdd.gov.uk)

Viridor appeals energy from waste planning decision

19 October, 2009

Viridor has announced it is to appeal the decision taken by Cardiff Council's planning committee to refuse planning permission for an Energy from Waste Combined Heat and Power facility at Trident Park in Cardiff Bay.

The move comes after the city's planning committee went against the advice of its own officers in July and refused permission to build the facility, citing the fact waste could be brought in from other parts of south Wales as the reason....

Rodney Berman - What incinerator plans?

Thanks Cllr Berman but you are being rather pedantic! Not funny!! Shouldn't the people of Cardiff be fully informed and consulted now before you spend £1,085,000 having consultants just looking in to it ? I can tell you for free that it is a very bad idea!

Work is at an early stage? Is it Rodney?

When will plans or applications be made to the council for a "energy from waste plant" or to you and me - an incinerator be made to Cardiff council? How do you explain this? Opportunity for Cardiff to lead the way in waste and resource management June 2007....." By recovering energy from household waste, the new facility would provide a substantial amount of electricity to the city."

Energy from waste = a waste of energy. Plastics and paper are the main source of calorific value in an incinerator. Burning plastics, which are oil based,
is effectively burning fossil fuels – the main factor behind global warming. Paper is produced from wood by an energy intensive process. Burning it
wastes energy and resources as well as generating pollution.

How to comply with the landfill directive without incineration Greenpeace Scientific Journal

EXECUTIVE BUSINESS MEETING: 5 JULY 2007 MUNICIPAL RESIDUAL WASTE TREATMENT

REPORT OF CORPORATE DIRECTOR AGENDA ITEM: 8 PORTFOLIO: ENVIRONMENT & TRANSPORT - Reasons for this Report
1. To seek authority for the Council to:-
(i) work collaboratively with up to four other South East Wales Local authorities to develop the Outline Business case and carry out all other pre-procurement preparatory work for the proposed joint procurement of a residual waste treatment facility (Prosiect Gwyrdd),
which is in line with the Council’s Municipal Waste Management Strategy; and

9. The strategy clearly identified a need for a residual waste treatment facility in order for the targets to be met and for punitive landfill tax and infraction penalties to be avoided. ...The emphasis on residual waste treatment – and energy from waste in particular – was given renewed emphasis in the Secretary of State for the Environment’s Waste Strategy for England announced on 24 May 2007.

25. Meanwhile, officers have jointly been exploring the following preprocurement
works: project scope, procurement partnering structure, market appetite, key assumptions, and initial affordability models for each authority, site availability and project timescale.

(Approval to join Prosiect Gwyrdd and undertake pre Procurement work required to procure a residual waste treatment - Indicative date July 2007
Completion of detailed outline business case and other prep procurement work – Dec 2007 )

35. The proposed procurement is based on a notional 300-400,000 tonnes of residual waste- per annum when fully developed, responding to the current requirements of the partnership and the contribution to landfill diversion in the context of the region and the rest of Wales. However, changes in law/policy on a European or national level could have a significant impact on any proposed procurement in progress. Increased levels of recycling would reduce the amount of residual waste. (how does this promote recycling?)

The existing stated policy of the Welsh Assembly Government is:-
......· The overall level of energy from municipal waste in 2013 should not exceed an overall figure of 25%. What legal status this proviso enjoys and precisely what it means (e.g. is it 25 % for each authority or the whole of Wales?) is unclear.

I think we all should be in on this at an early stage. After all this outline buiness case and pre procurement stage is expensive as your council document indicates

"for Whilst this preserves flexibility for each authority, it should be appreciated that the costs of the
procurement exercise is likely to be considerable and if the rights are
exercised to abort the process/not to award a contract, then such
expenditure will prove abortive;"

Programme Manager with
Office £100,000 per year for 3 years

Specialist Advice:Legal, Financial, Technical accommodation £185,000 first year and £600,000 for next 2 years = £1,085,000

EXECUTIVE BUSINESS MEETING: 5 JULY 2007 MUNICIPAL RESIDUAL WASTE TREATMENT "Cardiff Council being authorised to enter into contracts for the appointment of external consultants to advise on Prosiect Gwyrdd (within approved funding levels and subject to agreeing the apportionment of costs between the authorities);"