Incineration is not green

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."

NOTES

[1] Greenhouse Gas Balances of Waste Management Services, Eunomia Consulting report to the GLA

For further information please contact Friends of the Earth Cymru on 029 2022 9577

Incineration is not green

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."

NOTES

[1] Greenhouse Gas Balances of Waste Management Services, Eunomia Consulting report to the GLA

For further information please contact Friends of the Earth Cymru on 029 2022 9577

Plea for tougher incineration rules

Plea for tougher incineration rules

LATEST PRESS COVERAGE

ENVIRONMENTAL group Friends of the Earth Cymru is calling for a tougher line on waste incineration in Wales. Read

Jan 17 2009 by Lisa Jones, South Wales Echo

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.”

AM objects to Cardiff waste disposal plans

PlAID Cymru AM Leanne Wood has voiced her opposition to plans to build a waste incinerator in Cardiff. Read

Jan 15 2009 by Lisa Jones, South Wales Echo

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.

Build an incinerator or Scam Green

Write to scam green - info@prosiectgwyrdd.co.uk

PROJECT GREEN Prosiect Gwyrdd

 Prosiect Gwyrdd is a partnership between, Caerphilly Borough County
Council, The County Council of the City and County of Cardiff,
Monmouthshire County Council, Newport Council and Vale of Glamorgan
Council partners in project 'green' to build an incinerator > and burn all their rubbish in cardiff!.

I was wondering where on this greenwash website is a mention of the
INCINERATOR word!!! Please say because I am having difficulty finding it
Where is the information about the application for planning
permission for an incinerator to be built in Cardiff?

Dear Anne,

As you can see from www.prosiectgwyrdd.co.uk , Proseict Gwyrdd is looking
at all available technology options for residual waste treatment. I hope
the website is a valuable education resource for you.

In relation to planning:

The actions by the Viridor Waste company are independent of the Councils
(Cardiff, Caerphilly, Monmouth, Newport and the Vale of Glamorgan and
their role in the regional waste procurement partnership Prosiect Gwyrdd.
It is open to Viridor (or anyone else with any suitably performing
technology proposal) to tender to the Project Gwyrdd regional procurement
exercise for residual waste, should decisions for the joint procurement to
proceed be made, it will be an open an transparent process with a number
of competitors involved.     Decisions are awaited on this matter from the
five local authorities concerned and will be subject also to decisions
from the Welsh Assembly Government, notably on funding.

Any planning proposals by the company made to Cardiff Council as the
appropriate planning Authority will be dealt with independently of any
waste management matters and in the normal course of planning procedure.

In terms of your comment about the website not including the word
incineration:

If you have a look at the Energy from Waste with combined heat and power
section, under the introduction you will find a sentence saying, 'for a
full detailed brief on incineration' please visit defra.co.uk (link to
this technology option).

I hope you manage to find it, it is quite clear. All of the available
options, with an introduction and full detailed brief from DEFRA are
clearly shown on the website.

Kind Regards,

Prosiect Gwyrdd

GREENWASH website from councils dumping rubbish in Cardiff

PROJECT GREEN Prosiect Gwyrdd
Prosiect Gwyrdd is a partnership between, Caerphilly Borough County Council, The County Council of the City and County of Cardiff, Monmouthshire County Council, Newport Council and Vale of Glamorgan Council
partners in project 'green' to build an incinerator and burn all their rubbish in cardiff!.
The combined municipal waste of the five authorities makes up 40% of the total municipal waste of Wales to come through Cardiff in hundreds of lorries every day? Are they crazy?

They have writen to FOE to ask for a link to their new greenwash website!! No mention of the INCINERATOR word!!! Please say if you spot it! No mention that planning permission has been sought for a massive incinerator. Please correct me if I am wrong.
http://www.caerphilly.gov.uk/prosiectgwyrdd/english/home.html

I would be interested in your views to put on this website or post them here.

Take action today and write to your councillor and or planning.

Say no to Splott incinerator on Facebook
or no incinerator in cardiff bay here

Viridor proposal would turn Cardiff into South Wales Waste Capital

Mon, Nov 10, 2008

LetsRecycle reports that:

Plans to develop a new incinerator in Cardiff have come under fire because of concerns it will not be limited to burning non-recyclable waste. Waste firm Viridor has been selected as preferred partner by the owners of a site near the Cardiff docks to take forward the £150 million project to build a “waste management and resource recovery facility”.

According to a letter from Cardiff Friends of the Earth local people are concerned that the proposed facility would be over-sized, as 350,000 tonnes per annum equates to some 2.5 times the amount of residual waste Cardiff produces. Continue Reading “Viridor proposal would turn Cardiff into South Wales waste capital” »

Green Santa says NOT IN SPLOTT

No INCINERATOR for Cardiff
A Green Santa accompanied by members of Cardiff Friends
of the Earth and councillors including Splott Councillor
Gavin Cox deliver a Christmas parcel containing hundreds
of objections against incinerator to Cardiff Planning
Department. 19th Dec

Questions to Andrew Bates
Development control section, City Hall Cardiff. from Max

I wish to examine the claim of ‘negative’ carbon footprint. You said you would ask the applicant for the necessary information.

I believe the ES must contain enough information for the public to assess this claim. The ES is huge – 2000 pages taking 290Mb – so we should not be told to go through it all. As I mentioned, the Supporting Statement section 6 should refer to the parts which are relevant for the claim.

Appendixes have full pdf-security so that it is impossible to use copy/ paste extract parts. This includes the Council’s own Scoping Opinion. Will you ask that this protection is removed, as it hinders public consultation.

Appendix 9 written by SLR explains the carbon footprint as derived
using WRATE software

# there is no explanation of this software, nor any document or manual in the References
# there is nothing about the uncertainty or ‘robustness’ of the software
# there is nothing about the ‘robustness’ of the result due to a range of plausible assumptions.

The Coventry default incinerator in WRATE is assumed. However, that default is known to be wrong – instead of the actual heat supply to the motor works, it took a fictitious figure based on the desire of the Env Agency to promoite CHP. SLR do not explain this.

The Heat Plan Appendix 7 gives no quantities for expected heat supply and no actual examples apart from the special Exeter hospital incinerator. It does not address the issue of large variations in seasonal demand for heat. The plan does not include a proposal for a back-up generator of heat when the incinerator is down, nor for heat storage to cater for the daily cycle in demand if as proposed the incinerator operates continuously. Is supplying heat a serious proposal?

The Appendix 9 says which factors have been assumed from the Coventry case and which have been changed and refers to “supporting spreadsheet files”. I cannot see these in the application documents.

It says the carbon footprint is compared with that from waste-to-landfill (‘baseline scenario’) but doesn’t describe the assumptions of that ‘baseline’ - presumably an out-of-date baseline that is not now allowed under requirements for stabilisation of biowastes, because it mentions “processing waste in the landfill” after Fig 5-3.

Please therefore ask
# for a truthful “carbon footprint” showing the actual CO2 (equ) emitted compared with the claimed ‘offsets’ and including the biogenic carbon emitted
# for an incinerator calculation with real heat use, not the fictitious Coventry figure, justifying the claim the heat credit “is considered appropriate” in real terms.
# for real energy efficiency figures for the actual CNIM technology proposed.

Please come back to me if this is not clear and thanks for your help.