Environment

Does Shropshire need an incinerator, and how should we better manage our waste?

Geof Proffitt
I fully support Veolia's proposal for a waste disposal unit in Shrewsbury. Such facilites exist throughout Europe and in the UK. It is a fact that the local press in Chinham and Portsmouth are not reporting thousands of deaths and raising major health concerns about their facilites. One has to ask, why aren't the anti brigade challenging every facility in the UK and Europe. Their protest in isolation smacks of Nimbyism. One councillor described the proposed facility as a blot on the landscape, but when viewed from Haughmond Hill it would be difficult to spot amongst number of shed like buildings that now make up Harlescott. Our MP wants to refer the application to Europe. There is no evidence that the European Parliament are currently seeking to close all such facilities in Europe so what is the point except to delay the process. Veolia have also made it clear that, where necessary, any waste from commercial sources will be the same materials as collected from domestic sources in order to make the unit most effective. The problems that Oswestry Waste Paper had in getting it's product off to China recently goes to show, that with the best will in the world it is not always possible to recycle everything. So where inBelle View, Underdale, Radbrook, Harlescott etc are the new landfill holes going to be dug in the interim. Our MP claims to represent the views of the majority but the 600 who have raised concerns represent less than 1% of the 70,000 residents in Shrewsbury. So, let's have a balanced range of views.

Paul Clack
By its very nature incineration has to be wrong, with proper public education waste can and is being reduced. Veolia have said that if there is insuficient domestic waste they will burn commercial waste.As if there aren't enough pollutants hovering over our beautiful town and beyond, Veolia wants to add a 15 mile radius toxic cloud. Well I don't want it.And what's more to the point, by the time it's built we won't need it.

Guy Fawkes
Its official. Guy Fawkes night contributes more to dioxin emissions than all the incineration plant in the UK. www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Business/8_wip_qa_2147943.pdf and www.eurochlor.org/upload/documents/documents57.pdf

chris
I'm worried about this incinerator and the one planned for Telford. 2 main reasons - 1, air quality and possible toxicity and 2, people will not be further encouraged to reduce waste by avoiding buying packaging etc.

James Reeves
Nowhere in the whole world needs incineration. Waste collection needs to be over-hauled. We need to adopt the same system as the Germans have - separation at source. We also a food waste collection service for the whole of the country.

Gill Davis
I object very strongly to the incineration of waste. Apart from the health issues which are serious and documented these incinerators have to be 'fed' with waste 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so remove the necessity to reduce waste, and can result in waste being imported from other areas. It may sound great that power is going to be produced but more greenhouse gases are produced than would be from producing a similar amount of power from conventional methods. I believe we should be trying to reduce our waste and using recycling composting and anaerobic digesters for any remaining waste.

lewlew.
In my understanding America will not tollerate incineration,there are too many questions not answered, Battlefield is too close to houses and places of work, if we have to have this it should be further out of the urban area.

Dorothy Jones
I feel there is a need for an incinerator but it should be one for the whole county including Telford and Wrekin and not built in the proposed location. It should be sited well away from the urban areas of Shropshire. I do not think that the Battlefield site is the best place for an incinerator to be placed as it is to near the town's main retail parks and residential areas. These areas already face problems with pollution due to the abbatoir burning waste. Could the siting of the incinerator also be a reason why the new food technology park development has not taken off and that most of the units are empty?Why can't the new Shropshire Council review the decision of the location and work with Telford Borough Council to provide one incinerator for the whole of Shropshire. I also think it's mostly to do with the council owning the land.

les
There has been a lot of shouting over incineration in Shropshire and elsewhere. Much of it based on a little knowledge of little bits about incinerators.Britain received from europe the Waste incineration directive and our Enviroment agency added to it to toughen up parts they thought needed strengthening.Plannig considerations are taken into account and every aspect of incineration is controlled in detail. Monitoring of pollutants is very strict and reporting is controlled to almost a Draconian extent. Contravention of emisdsions is severely dealt withand it cannot be circumvented in any way. If the monitoring system does not work, neither does the plant!Pollution/emission limits are set so low that safety is assured. Aside from depleted oxygen levels in th flue gases the air is cleaner that the work place around the incinerator, especially if there are diesel motors in use.radio shropshire needs to bring on a programme with representatives of the Environment Agency and Planners to explain their role in the beginning and afterwards of any incinerator plant, and then have someone in to explain what the safety limits are for all of the expected pollutants.Until the wider populacxe understand some of these points better, we will be chasing our tails till is is too late to deal with the problem of waste.

Michel Nijsten
Shrewsbury and Shropshire has a 60% recycling rate, two years ahead of the time frame given by Europe zero waste by 2020, council still thinks we need one because it will take 5 years to build!?. The fall-out of the fumes are toxins and microscopic dust particles will be in a radius of 10-15 miles.Veolia can not garantee 100% safety off all its emission.Increase of cancerous illnesses, increase of kidney diseases, increase of asthma patients and increase of infant mortality. Land-fill sites are not the solution for our waste nor is air emission.There are already better alternatives to deal with our waste and greener methods are emerging every day, using recycled packaging and bio-degradable materials, make it compulsory to businesses to reduce packaging, re-cycle bottles back to producers, just a different way of waste management is needed. We all need re-ducating and get rid of our throw-away society attitude. One needs to understand the serious implications the incinerator could have for Shrewsbury as a town and the local Shropshire businesses and our agriculture greenbelt. In my view, when you build an incinerator in your community you are advertising to the world that you were not clever enough, either politically or technically, to recover your discarded resources in a manner which is responsible to your local community or future generations.

Sue Boulding
No county in Britain needs an incinerator. If the govt was at all concerned with anything other than the interests of big business, it would compel manufacturers and suppliers to stop overpackaging. Hopefully a recession will stop people buying so much junk, which they don't really need and which will only end up in landfill.And hopefully Veolia will learn to compost and recycle.

Brian Smith
The only present method suitable to dispose of non recyclable materials is by Plasma gasification.The USA have banned incineration plants,for health reasons,and we should do the same.

Sarah Roper, Crosshill
I'm sure Shropshire can recycle more waste if we had an effective system, my parents live over in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and they have a very simple scheme, 1 Green bin for garden and Fruit and veg waste like carrot peelings etc (in Shrewsbury we cannot put veg and food waste in our green bins unless they all windfallen fruit!!!) 1 silver bin which you can put glass, tins,cans, clothing, cardboard and paper, even tetrapacks! And best of all plastic not just bottles but tubs and containers like for example the type of plastic tomatoes come in, I have been recycling my plastic bottles at the local battlefield recycling centre but they do not or will not have a facility for recycling other plastic! How is it that one council is willing to find good contractors that are willing to recycle nearly all parts of waste and Shrewsbury think building a dirty incinerator close to so many residents is the best way to go. We need to start considering the publics health and the environment and not what is the cheapest option for the contractor!!! As many have said before me 'REDUCE, RE-USE, RECYCLE'

wendy dimarco
I am grateful for Michael Ryan's support to articles in the Bucks Free Press about the obvious dangers of incineration, and sharing his research of asthma statistics in shropshire. Students learn in Chemistry that nothing is created or destroyed and on combustion particles combine with oxygen to produce waste gases. They are taught that the combustion of plastics produce toxic chemicals harmful to health. They are taught that combustion produce carbon dioxide which causes global warmings and we must all do our bit to reduce global warmings,including reducing traffic on roads and so on.It seems to me that those in charge of making decisions in both Shropshire and Bucks lack basic common sense. It also seems to me that this is being done to generate revenue for for Councils. One of the possible sites in Bucks is 300 yards from my home.Government Deparments also need to control immigration from the EU and beyond as we do not have the infrastructure to deal with increased numbers.We also need to reduce the use of plastics in manufacturing,and provide far better recycling facilities. It is common sense.

linda crane
We are,as a world,trying to clean up our act.Reducing greenhouse gases is a priority.An incinerator in Shropshire or anywhere else for that matter,will increase CO2's. I for one,do not want to see an incinerator built.The way forward,surely,is to REDUCE,RE-USE and RECYCLE.Get these huge companies and supermarkets to reduce packaging,this would make a huge difference to the amount that goes to landfill,that's the way forward,not incineration.

jay syrett judd
Incinerator technology has improved, and emissions are tightly controlled. We need energy from waste, however the energy released from say plastics is less than the energy used to produce the material, so recycling is the better option. The problem is that an incinerator needs constant feeding, which can only lead to compromises with recycling.I'm a fan of Anaerobic Digestion, especially as we can develop technologies that will enable the building of smaller digestors that can be used locally to provide heat and power as well as a finished organic fertiliser. Large scale projects like incinerators take responsibility for waste away from the people producing it and cost mega bucks...think small and deal with waste at the local level.

David Allen
I am the energy champion for a Shrewsbury company, as part of my annual commitments we have a meeting of twelve energy champions throughout the midlands, we have it at different venues the last one was at Viola at the energy for waste in Sheffield, I was so impressed with the management of the site, no mess, no smells, no smoke or gasses leaving this plant apart from a little bit of steam, I would also like to say that this plant provides all the heating, lighting, for the swimming pools, the council offices and nearly all the council properties within the town centre and all the other properties that wish to buy from them, all provided from waste collected from Sheffield not sorted or divided just as it comes from your home, this has got to be the way to go as the only thing to come out of this building is scrap metal and clinkers from the furnace as everything is burnt at 850 degrees. It is not an incinerator it is a waste to energy plant.Move into the 21st century and reduce your carbon footprint in this 20th century.

Manfred Spille
I have built and commissioned waste incinerators all over Europe for the last 20 Years. Are countries like Switzerland, Germany, France, Denmark, Netherland, Belgium, Sweden wrong building these incinerators? I now work in the Netherlands to add another line to an existing 3 line incinerator just to bring the capacity up to 1 Mill tones of incinerated waste per year. Netherland does not want to dump any waste anymore !! In Norway they are digging out old landfills and burn the waste because they do not want to live with a time bomb in the ground. Recycling is the best way of getting rid of waste, but it is not possible to recycle 100%, so is it good to just dump the rest it in the ground ? Incineration brings back some of the energy we use for producing this waste. Residues from the incineration process are used for road building and in the building industry. I have wondered why the UK is so behind in using their recourses (waste) for energy production. These incinerators are nearly as efficient as coal power stations and I am sure a lot cleaner then some of the coal power stations in the UK. The flue gas cleaning processes and the environmental controls are excellent now. I would have problems to live next to an landfill site, but would have no problem to live next to an incinerator. If anybody is interested I can organize a visit to an incinerators in The Netherlands or give more details about the process.Kind regardsManfred SpilleShrewsburyShropshire

Diane Greenfield
There is land immediately adjacent to the Granville Land Fill Site on the south side which is in the Telford Waste Plan as a preferred site for recycling. I cannot understand why the two councils cannot work together to co-locate landfill and incinerator and recycling to form a waste park in an area which is hidden from public view.

Roger Wain
Whats all the panic about?Birmingam have been doing it for years

Michael Ryan
Are Shropshire Waste Partnership and the residents of Shropshire aware that on 1st Oct 2007, when Veolia took over the waste disposal in Shropshire for the next 27 years, they were also awarded a contract by Down Corning, in Midland, Michigan, to operate a plasma gasification plant that will dispose of hazardous waste in a safe and economic manner, unlike via the incinerator that they plant to build at Harlescott.Michael RyanCampaign Co-ordinator for Safe Waste in Shropshire, and contributor at Jim Hawkins' phone-in of 5 October 2007

J Jex
I also live in the Sundorne area, however if I lived in another area of the town I would still have the same view.I personally don't believe that battlefield is the correct area for the incinerator. Although it is an industrial area, there are many food places near by ie Tesco, iceland etc that the pollution could effect, surely this would deem a health hazard? There are also a large residential community with schools close by. The idea to incinerate is a positive move but the location is not. As previously spoken about the old sugar beet factory would certainly be a good option as it is far enough away.

N worthing
As a resident of the Sundorne area I already experience pollution in the form of a local meat processing plant emmiting strong smells very regularly wafting over from their processing work.I dont know of any health complications from this but it gets to a point where you would rather stay indoors.Simularly when the wind takes direction we would have vapours from the incinerator adding to the mix.As the area I live in is not particularly pictureresque compared to the historical more affluent part of town I wonder whether any protest would be listened to. We are in a productive part of town where you expect some factory emmisions but wherever you place this incinerator countryside or town it will encroach on someones life quality. I agree it is better than landfill but with government putting pressure on people that provide and use packing (supermarkets,shops,takeaway and all new products we come into contact with)the re-cycling and use per person should also come down if good work is done in re-cyling.There must be tonnes of plastic bottle,polystyrene tray,lolly sticks,plastic tamper tags,cigarette stubs and the plastic around each pack just on the streets and spilling out of local bins.Education of our choices from a young age must go a long way. When I was a child a toothpaste tube did not have a tin foil tamper lid.This product modification in itself is an effort by producers to keep us safe from contamination through tampering but down the line it is causing more contamination in its disposing.I have digressed but it all adds up to what do we do with it all.

alan-stewart@hotmail.co.uk
The council already reduces, reuses and recycles as much as it is able to. The rest would have been sent to landfill, but instead Veolia are proposing an incinerator to create energy from much of this material. Only a fraction of this material is now sent to landfill. Well done, Shropshire and Veolia!

E Jones
thank you for a very well written unbiased article.I agree that it should be built further away from dense urban development.But unless we address the issue of excessive packaging and half-hearted attemts at recycling,this scheme will only encourage us to continue in our ambivalent ways

DA
Of course we need to do better at recyling, and I think it's great that we are going to have a collection of plastic bottles, which will make our recycling service as comprehensive as anywhere. But can we in Shropshire really recycle 65% of all our waste at a county council level when the highest performing district council in England is only doing 50%? Whilst I'm sure many of the commentaters are doing their bit, the sad fact is not everyone shares the same commitment to protecting the environment. So like it or not, we still have to deal with what's left.

Jem
Every town should have one why throw waste into a hole in the ground when it can be turned into electricity? It's a clean technology now so why is everybody whinging about toxins? pollutants? etc

Rob Whittle
Shropshire CC don't take into account the better MBT/AD technology around like SRM/NEWS, Global Renewables and Oaktech. Secondly Shopshire CC have no idea of the health risks from PM2.5> fine particles escaped emisions. Firstly they don't specifically monitor them, more than 50% escape filtering, and these highly reactive PM2.5s are strongly linked to COPD, infant mortality and Asthmas. BBC Shropshire need to interview Dr. Dick van Steenis MBBS and Michael Ryan who both have research and proof that modern Incinerators still have significant health effects downwind, however much emissions equipment or official HPA/COT/COMEAD/Defra spin to cover this risk and hazard.

N Dean
NB this is purely a personal comment. I just happen to be commenting from my workstation. Modern pollution controls, imposed by the Environment Agency and nuisance controls available to the District Council Environmental Health Officers mean that any modern incinerator would be safe to human health and the environment. People have nothing to fear from incinerators.They are commonplace in European countries which are far more environmentally aware than Britain. It is very likely that any modern plant would recycle everything of value before incinerating it.....if only because it is very profitable to do so. The Councill needs to ensure that its contracts require this and also that the bulding is an attractive one. Staffordshire`s is architecturally dismal.

Mrs.S. Lewin.
An incinerator giving out possibly toxins in an area close to housing estates and schools can only be bad news in my opinion,I am one of the unfortunate ones who lives close to this proposal and I certainly do not want it sited a quarter of a mile from my house, Is there not a greener more eco-friendly way to manage our waste, and secondly is there not a more suitable site away from houses? The realisation is we do not know the effects these incinerators have on our health,until it is too late in 10/20 years down the line and the Harlescott residents are all getting ill.

evron
Sounds like a great idea to me,why aren`t there more of them.?

Evan Evans
What about the health risks to the local community and the plant workers, as records show in germany and china that an elivated number of lung problems possibly associated with incineration.Will they be looked after by an already bursting nhs?

Tony Warner
I tend to agree with others, that this facility is planned to be far to close to the town.Though it may be said, living in Harlescott, as I do, I am biased.What about the now defunct Alscott sugar factory as a site??

Val Oldaker
Veolia are not proposing to only incinerate waste 'unsuitable for re-use, recycling and composting'.they are making no effort to separate recyclables from the waste stream, above what individual householders sort out.This means that we can have a great influence on what happens - higher recycling rates would mean there is less justification for an incinerator.Your article is right when it points out that waste reduction is key - we can all choose to buy products with less packaging, and to let retailers know what we want. it's our money, our purchasing power that can make changes.this type of incineration is the quick, easy, unimaginative way to deal with waste. there is far better technology out there, but it requires a bit more effort on the part of the contractors.looking back over ALL technology, outcomes are always found to be worse than was first thought, never better. no-one says 'oh, nuclear waste is easier to deal with than we thought', or, 'rubbish doesn't pollute watercourses as much as we thought it would'. effects always prove to be worse than we thought, as we aquire more knowledge. however good the standards are on emissions, it is highly improbable that this is the last word. and the UN figure for a safe level of dioxins, produced when plastics are burnt, is nil.

Huw Peach
Thanks to the Radio Shropshire team for an excellent article full of analysis.Some have urged us, in the local press, to think again about incinineration.Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP devoted his Shrewsbury Chronicle column on February 22nd 2007 to explaining the EU Waste Framework Directive and urged Chronicle readers to see that -after waste- reduction and recycling- incineration is the best solution to dealing with the 534 kilos of household waste, which the average EU citizen discards every year. He pointed to Denmark, which incinerates over half of its municipal waste, as the model for us to emulate in the UK.However, the Green Party would instead urge people interested in this subject to consider Austria. We feel this country is the best role-model in the EU, because it recycles the same amount that the Danes send up in flames. We all know that burning rubbish is bad for the environment and bad for our health. It encourages us to continue wasting valuable resources, which we could be composting or recycling, and prevents us from addressing difficult issues like non-degradable packaging. Responsible politicians should be making recycling easier, implementing zero-waste strategies and rejecting the ‘dump it and burn it’ policies of yesterday. Incineration will only remove the incentive to do what we all know is the right thing: REDUCE, RE-USE AND RECYCLE.

Barry Ridgewell
You were asking what happened to the incinerator on Stafford Park. I was maintenance engineer there for some years and I believe it was sold off for scrap to I think T.E Jones of Knockin. There was talk of it going to saudi arabia but I don,t know what happenen there. The plant was in a very rundown state as little money was spent on it. It was not too efficient partly due to the rubbish being in black bags and not able to dry. Originally it was the Dawley incinerator,and never designed to cope with the ammount of refuse that ensued..If it had been run day and night it would have been much better as it took a good while to bring it up to a working temperature every day.

Mrs MC Lloyd
If Shropshire has to have an incinerator it could be better positioned. An ugly, smoking chimney would not look good for residents and visitors entering Shrewsbury from the north. Battlefield is too close to residents and the town. Yes we need to re-cycle & this needs to be convenient but there must be another way.