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Waste Campaign Group
Cornwall County Council is determined to build an incinerator in the heart of the county with a PFI bid
Cornwall Friends of the Earth are incredulous that the County Council is still determined to treat our waste with a central mass-burn incinerator. FOE believe that, at best, the Council have gravely mishandled their Public Finance Initiative (PFI) bid, while, more seriously, they have deliberately avoided consultation to impose a wasteful and expensive technology, bringing more pollution into the heart of Cornwall. They have consistently guided Councillors and commercial contractors towards a 200,000 tonne-per-annum incinerator, claiming there is no alternative. We contest this viewpoint.
In 2002, Cornwall FoE and other campaigners failed to persuade the County Council, in a Public Inquiry, that one central facility to treat waste was not only unsustainable, but also contrary to government guidance. We were then surprised when they started, and then stopped, developing a waste strategy to follow this. It is now clear that this was merely a way to avoid consultation. Instead they have done all they could to avoid public discussion and, through PFI, under cover of commercial confidentiality, got contractors to 'decide' on the outdated process the County Council clearly decided on in 2001. This appears wilfully manipulative as, had they gone through the process of developing a strategy, they would have initially had to consult, as this is a condition of the process.
An incinerator will set a threshold on recycling, well below that already achieved in many European countries. With a very long-term commercial contract we will be committing a great proportion of our waste (over 50%) to be simply burnt, and if we recycle our paper they will be dependent on plastics to get the energy which they lay such store by. For several years energy generated through incineration has no longer been classified as renewable - undoubtedly a government attempt to try to persuade local authorities to look more favourably at more sustainable processes.
Cornwall FOE set the scene for the Recycle for Cornwall Campaign with pioneering work in Kerrier. Since then we have felt part of a force taking Cornwall out ahead of the rest of the country in recycling and waste awareness. Now it appears all this will be for nothing, as an incinerator of this size will actually prevent the recycling we are striving for! Cornwall deserves more sustainable technologies, such as Mechanical Biological Treatment and Anaerobic Digestion, and even the new thermal technologies are cleaner, more efficient, smaller and more flexible than one big incinerator.
There are plenty of examples of good practice around the world. Our own Cornwall Waste Working Group went to the Styria region of Austria in 2002 where they had 60% kerbside recycling and, when they bring in Mechanical Biological Treatment composting and removing more recyclates, only 23% of the original waste will have to be disposed of.
Our County Council will be burning so much waste that we will not be able to reach even 50% recycling without starving the incinerator of fuel. Cornwall FOE urges everyone who wants a forward-looking strategy that will protect our greatest asset, the natural environment, to ask their County Councillors how they are going to vote on this development, and make this an issue for the May local elections. If this huge plant is built, where will be the incentive to create less waste, recycle, or take responsibility for what we put out in our black bags?