YAWN! Not another
consultation on waste! We’ve had ten
since Slyfield. If the politicians
haven’t got the message by now they never will…
Incineration: “NO THANK YOU” … Recycling: “YES PLEASE”… Blaa, blaa, blaa…
WAKE UP! Don’t let them
grind you down. THIS IS THE BIG
ONE! A statutory consultation on the
Waste Plan, which runs until 12 December, will decide whether Surrey gets
incinerators (probably about four) or not.
The Plan proposes an enormous county waste facility at Slyfield,
possible incinerators at Wisley and Woking, and potentially an incinerator at
the sewage works at Slyfield.
In all ten consultations to date, residents have responded in
great numbers calling for more recycling and composting facilities and an
incinerator-free approach. There have
now been an astounding 85,000 objections to incineration in Surrey. Great progress has been made.
·
GAIN and Guildford Borough Council called for a 60% recycling and
composting target.
·
This is now the target being used by the Government and the Region
for 2025.
·
GAIN called for major improvements to Civic Amenity sites such as
Slyfield.
·
Government assessed Surrey’s Civic Amenity sites, found them to be
amongst the worst in England and called for improvements in these facilities
that would result in savings of over £6.3 million by 2021.
·
GAIN and GBC promoted an incinerator-free approach.
·
Incinerator-free methods have come out as the best environmental
option and as feasible in formal assessments for the region and for Surrey.
In spite of all this, Surrey County Council is stubbornly
promoting incineration in Surrey.
This is partly because the County has got itself caught up in a contract
with SITA to build two incinerators.
However, the contract is so out of date that it falls far short of even
current waste targets and Government has advised that any contracts that do not
comply with modern standards should be reviewed and changed.
Surrey appears to be finding renegotiating the contract hard. The concern is that they might think
hoodwinking and bullying the public into accepting incineration is easier. Their latest consultation does not present
clear and open choices on matters such as incineration. Instead, it asks whether the public supports
recycling and moving away from landfilling to “treatment in other ways“. It does not explain that a vote for “other
ways” would in effect be a vote for Surrey’s favoured option of
incineration. Surrey is running a PR
campaign trying to persuade residents that incineration is safe and the only
practical option (because of the contract).
Surrey has failed to address any of the following concerns about
incineration.
·
Even modern incinerators have very poor records on emissions.
(Breaches, fires. turned off filters are well documented.)
·
Studies only look at what could be achieved by incinerators under
ideal operating conditions with clean waste and not at how they operate in
practice with rubbish that is a very tricky material to deal with.
·
Surrey has problems meeting air quality standards for NO2 and NOX
and incinerators would add significantly to this pollution.
·
Incinerators produces toxic ash as a result of the burning process
itself for which a hazardous landfill site would have to be found in Surrey
·
Incinerators would draw in waste from London
·
Large incinerators would result in a lot of waste being hauled to
a small number of sites across the county rather than treating waste in local
facilities as residents voted for.
·
60% of Surrey’s waste is biodegradable and 80% is recyclable. The material left after maximum recycling
and composting does not lend itself to burning. It could be pretreated for stable landfill.
·
Biological treatment would be much better suited to Surrey’s waste
and energy could be produced from the captured gas.
If you would like to comment on the Surrey Waste Plan leaflets are
available on GAIN stalls on the High Street and at Sainsbury in Burpham at
weekends during the consultation period.
You can comment online by using the link on the previous page.
REMEMBER: IF AN
INCINERATOR APPLICATION COMES FORWARD AFFECTING GUILDFORD, THIS PLAN WILL BE
THE RULEBOOK FOR DECIDING WHETHER IT GETS THE GO AHEAD.