Prosiect Gwyrdd RIGGED for incineration

PG's deception campaign!!
By allowing only a short time over Xmas for bids, they'll hope that only the incinerator companies they've been encouraging would get bids in.

Deception

Prosiect Gwyrdd – financial unsoundness hidden

The cost of "do minimum" landfill is cheaper!!! And with MBT it could come down further.
But it seems there is no problems of tight Council budgets and a bankrupt economy for these South Wales councils!
They ignore criticisms of this £1100 million PFI project. What right have our Cllr to mortgage our communities for 25-30 years*? They are going for Private Finance over 25-30 yr, despite cross-party opposition in Wales to high cost, inflexible PFI!

RIGGED for incineration

Not GREEN - They claim they have not chosen technology, yet the prospectus advertised by P Gwyrdd has been rigged to attract large incinerator companies and fix a long-term commitment to incineration, instead of cheaper low-tech mechanical and biological treatment systems.

PGwyrdd has made a mockery of Stakeholder participation, with only two from FoE but scarcely
anyone else as ‘public’ stakeholders at their 7th Sept. event. The rest are council officials etc!!

P Gwyrdd claimed to meet Welsh Strategy targets, but there is no mention of the maximum residual waste per person of 150kg, which means 125 000 tonnes maximum compared with their guide figure of 160 000 tonnes
(35% of 460 000t).

They’ve told Councils to claim to the public that they aim to “recycle and compost as much waste as possible”.
Yet the 65% falls far short of that claim, being less than already achieved in Europe, eg. Flanders, and far below the 80-90% figures said possible by their consultants.

They say nothing about toxic residues from waste combustion and the requirement under the proximity principle to have an outlet in SE Wales (they bother to offer help over waste transfer stations but not over a disposal site).

They set no requirement on energy efficiency, despite Welsh strategy on 60% minimum.

*Friends of the Earth from experience in England warns us against long-term waste deals with private companies (Long waste contracts www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/long_contracts.pdf).
http://cardiffincinerator.blogspot.com/

Rodney Berman hot under the collar!

Dear Ms

I thank you for your latest e-mail. However, I have answered many of these points before and you repeatedly ignore the explanations you are given and repeatedly distort what I say. You also repeat allegations over and over again that I have previously refuted.

On that basis, could you please explain why it is that you look forward to my reply?

Yours sincerely,

Rodney Berman

Leader Cardiff council

Yes Rodney

I would have thought that pointing out these NEW serious flaws, described below, would be appreciated and you would address these extremely serious points now that you are aware of them. Your officers have not brought these matters to your attention! You have not addressed these points as yet. Friends of the earth and the green party will continue to ask these very questions and deserve an answer. In addition we will be asking how the Environmental Assessment on the air quality affects of the incinerator was done.

I had hoped you might respond with an open mind.

There are HUGE serious flaws in project ‘green’ and the Viridor planning application in skipping due process. The Viridor site has not been a llocated for waste management purposes in the Development Plan. If allocated in the future LDP, it would be subject to stronger tests, potentially through the public examination process, and to a soundness test

How can you ignore the development plan?

The Cardiff LDP itself is still awaited so has not allocated sites, has not been subject to consultation and would still have to go through public examination. The proper process is for Viridor to argue for this site through the LDP. To grant planning permission would allow them to skip due process and so unfair to both the public and to promoters of alternative residual waste treatments. It should therefore be turned down on grounds of prematurity.

It is clearly an important function of the planning process to determine whether allocations for waste treatment facilities meet the test of ‘Best Practicable Environmental Option’ (BPEO) at a strategic level.

The applicant has not undertaken an SA/BPEO appraisal of the proposal and, because the Authority did not recognise that it was their responsibility to do so. There is, therefore, no support for the allocation being BPEO as required by National Policy. The National Waste Strategy, “Wise about Waste” specifies the minimising of landfill and incineration.

The Viridor proposal amounts to a huge expansion of incineration, both for municipal waste and for industrial waste, instead of the alternatives that exist for both categories. Viridor make a case for 170 000tpa of residual MSW arising in the sub-region. We have shown that even Prosiect Gwyrdd’s assumption brought up to date would give 140 000tpa. Viridor make no case for the 170 000tpa of commercial or industrial waste. Their incinerator would therefore tout for business and encourage incineration rather than waste recovery – preferred in the waste strategy as well as by the basic waste hierarchy (mandated by the Waste Framework Directive…….).

On waste growth, the figures show that municipal waste is stagnant or falling in Wales as well as England. It’s your officers who have to justify projected20increases (as they supported in the Regional Waste Plan), and learn lessons on waste reduction.

They have overlooked the dangerous fact that the process produces vast quantities of Ash which in landfill20produces toxic dust and leachate. A Ministerial answer last week in the Commons specified that incinerator ash has to be tested for being hazardous waste – no mention of that in the project greenwah report or the planning application.

And of course there is a big question to of the propriety of the officers fixing with Viridor a site visit to their incinerator still under construction. No one was informed - that Colnbrook is Viridor's incinerator and not yet operating!!! So what point is there in visiting that? And what opportunities for the public to join that visit?

best wishes

and still hoping for a reply

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

WAG not happy funding incinerator

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

Prosiect Gwyrdd Greenwash!

to Cardiff Environmental Scrutiny Cttee.

* Prosiect Gwyrdd was portrayed to the Councils as a long-term
solution to residual waste, with a claim of it being "green". But

it's really an inflexible and costly incinerator, going for burning
rather than maximal recycling and returning bio-material to land.

* Cardiff's failure to plan new landfill capacity (despite 5-25% of
waste tonnages emerge as incinerator ash that requires landfill)
means that Cardiff is facing high transport costs from 2009.

* while we hope the collection of food waste will help, we are
concerned at the predicted (para.6) £6 million per year penalties
from 2013 for failing to meet the target for cutting biodegradable
material sent to landfill.  MBT systems that could remedy this have
been ignored.

* Prosiect Gwyrdd goes for minimising waste to landfill, which
contradicts current Waste strategy of minimising incineration and
landfill.  It has been held up by WAG since May as incompatible with
Wales's probable amended waste strategy for high (at least 70%)
recycling and composting.

* modular MBT systems that give increasing separation of recyclables
and of residues to be treated and sent to land are being introduced
in England.  Non-food land is needed, as derelict land reclamation
and forestry, but neither Prosiect Gwyrdd nor the SE Regional
Plan/Hyder assessed this.

* financing Prosiect Gwyrdd is problematic, as PFI is ruled out and
private capital is caught by the credit crunch.  The incinerator
'solution' is a mirage, receding well beyond 2013 and requiring
landfill of ash that is increasingly classed as hazardous.

Councillrs need to get moving on 'plan B' - high recycling
and composting plus MBT trials towards meeting the 2013 targets.