PRESS RELEASE: 23rd November 2009:
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colchesterfoeESSEX FRIENDS OF THE EARTH
01206/383123
Photo opportunity: County Hall steps 1pm to 1.30pm Thursday 26th November before East Area Waste Committee meeting in Room 1, County Hall.
WE MUST DUMP THE COUNTY'S WASTE PLANS TO DESTROY HALF OUR VALUABLE RESOURCES AND MASSIVELY INCREASE CLIMATE CHANGE GASES FOR THIRTY YEARS - AT A COST TO COUNCIL TAXPAYERS OF £8,500 EACH!
Last Thursday the county put out tenders for a £1billion contract to destroy half Essex's valuable recyclable and compostable resources for three decades. The plan for Basildon or any of the waste sites in Essex is for MBT plants which shred and dry black bag 'waste' making a polluting Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) to burn in a SRF incinerator. ECC have just supported MBT and a SRF incinerator and we have fought against it at the recent Rivenhall Airfield public inquiry.
The countries of the world are joining together to battle against global catastrophes from climate change. The Essex County Council plans will massively increase climate change gases even though the UK has a commitment to reduce these by 34% by 2020 and in the Climate Change Act by 80% by 2050.
Recycling saves energy and resources, cuts pollution, transport and above all reduces climate change gases. Recycling paper and card and composting garden and food waste save these rotting down in landfill and creating methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It is likely there will be a UK ban soon on landfilling these biodegradable materials which make up two-thirds of the municipal waste.
The Government strongly supports Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants for food waste, which produce electricity or biogas. The National Grid recently produced a report which showed that using AD plants for food waste and other putrescible wastes such as agricultural slurries could produce enough gas for around half of the UK's domestic heating. This is far more efficient than using the methane to produce electricity.
Last year Essex recycled and composted 5% more than the previous year and reached a mediocre 43% but with their waste plans are now limiting recycling to 50% by 2020. This is the minimum Government statutory target for 2020. It is likely this statutory target will rise because many councils have already surpassed 50% recycling, with the best over 60%.
Yet Flanders already recycles over 70% and the Welsh Assembly has completed waste audits showing that 93.3% of municipal waste is recyclable or compostable. Scotland and Wales have 75% recycling targets.
Another strand of the county's waste plan is to have recyclables collected mixed (commingled) in a wheelie bin, crushed in a compactor and taken to a costly central MRF (Materials Recycling Facility) to be mechanically sorted. If recyclables are collected this way, Govt-funded WRAP has shown the materials are degraded, with 10-15% rejected and low quality materials result, particularly paper. Our UK reprocessors and paper recycling need high quality materials.
WRAP showed that recyclables should be collected separately at the kerbside and sorted at the kerb, producing high quality recyclates receiving high prices. They also showed this was the cheapest method for collection and saved transport and energy.
Paula Whitney, Waste Co-ordinator for Essex Friends of the Earth, said:
"We must ask Lord Hanningfield to dump this Essex disastrous waste plan which will hugely increase climate change gases, threatening our Essex coastline with rising sea levels, destroy our valuable resources and cost Essex council taxpayers £8,500 each.
We must instead spend the next decade getting on with recycling and composting to aim at Zero Waste by 2020. I have already reached 99% recycling using my home compost bins and the Colchester free kerbside collections of garden waste, paper, card, glass bottles, cans and foil, plastic bottles and mixed plastics. I take Tetrapaks to the local supermarkets for recycling.
Total waste has been dropping in the UK since 2000 and has also been dropping in Essex over recent years. We are not 'running out of landfill' - Tarmac showed we have at least 50 years' potential landfill availability at Stanway alone. The rising price of landfill will encourage more recycling and composting - every tonne not sent to landfill by a district council receives this saved cost as Recycling Credits from the county council, plus a high price for clean recyclates if sorted at the kerb.
Food waste is the next large fraction of the domestic waste which should be collected separately from the kerbside using lidded buckets, to be taken to local Anaerobic Digestion plants to create electricity or domestic gas heating."
ENDS.
Essex Waste Management Partnership Residual Waste Treatment Contract attached.
01206/383123
Photo opportunity: County Hall steps 1pm to 1.30pm Thursday 26th November before East Area Waste Committee meeting in Room 1, County Hall.
WE MUST DUMP THE COUNTY'S WASTE PLANS TO DESTROY HALF OUR VALUABLE RESOURCES AND MASSIVELY INCREASE CLIMATE CHANGE GASES FOR THIRTY YEARS - AT A COST TO COUNCIL TAXPAYERS OF £8,500 EACH!
Last Thursday the county put out tenders for a £1billion contract to destroy half Essex's valuable recyclable and compostable resources for three decades. The plan for Basildon or any of the waste sites in Essex is for MBT plants which shred and dry black bag 'waste' making a polluting Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) to burn in a SRF incinerator. ECC have just supported MBT and a SRF incinerator and we have fought against it at the recent Rivenhall Airfield public inquiry.
The countries of the world are joining together to battle against global catastrophes from climate change. The Essex County Council plans will massively increase climate change gases even though the UK has a commitment to reduce these by 34% by 2020 and in the Climate Change Act by 80% by 2050.
Recycling saves energy and resources, cuts pollution, transport and above all reduces climate change gases. Recycling paper and card and composting garden and food waste save these rotting down in landfill and creating methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It is likely there will be a UK ban soon on landfilling these biodegradable materials which make up two-thirds of the municipal waste.
The Government strongly supports Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants for food waste, which produce electricity or biogas. The National Grid recently produced a report which showed that using AD plants for food waste and other putrescible wastes such as agricultural slurries could produce enough gas for around half of the UK's domestic heating. This is far more efficient than using the methane to produce electricity.
Last year Essex recycled and composted 5% more than the previous year and reached a mediocre 43% but with their waste plans are now limiting recycling to 50% by 2020. This is the minimum Government statutory target for 2020. It is likely this statutory target will rise because many councils have already surpassed 50% recycling, with the best over 60%.
Yet Flanders already recycles over 70% and the Welsh Assembly has completed waste audits showing that 93.3% of municipal waste is recyclable or compostable. Scotland and Wales have 75% recycling targets.
Another strand of the county's waste plan is to have recyclables collected mixed (commingled) in a wheelie bin, crushed in a compactor and taken to a costly central MRF (Materials Recycling Facility) to be mechanically sorted. If recyclables are collected this way, Govt-funded WRAP has shown the materials are degraded, with 10-15% rejected and low quality materials result, particularly paper. Our UK reprocessors and paper recycling need high quality materials.
WRAP showed that recyclables should be collected separately at the kerbside and sorted at the kerb, producing high quality recyclates receiving high prices. They also showed this was the cheapest method for collection and saved transport and energy.
Paula Whitney, Waste Co-ordinator for Essex Friends of the Earth, said:
"We must ask Lord Hanningfield to dump this Essex disastrous waste plan which will hugely increase climate change gases, threatening our Essex coastline with rising sea levels, destroy our valuable resources and cost Essex council taxpayers £8,500 each.
We must instead spend the next decade getting on with recycling and composting to aim at Zero Waste by 2020. I have already reached 99% recycling using my home compost bins and the Colchester free kerbside collections of garden waste, paper, card, glass bottles, cans and foil, plastic bottles and mixed plastics. I take Tetrapaks to the local supermarkets for recycling.
Total waste has been dropping in the UK since 2000 and has also been dropping in Essex over recent years. We are not 'running out of landfill' - Tarmac showed we have at least 50 years' potential landfill availability at Stanway alone. The rising price of landfill will encourage more recycling and composting - every tonne not sent to landfill by a district council receives this saved cost as Recycling Credits from the county council, plus a high price for clean recyclates if sorted at the kerb.
Food waste is the next large fraction of the domestic waste which should be collected separately from the kerbside using lidded buckets, to be taken to local Anaerobic Digestion plants to create electricity or domestic gas heating."
ENDS.
Essex Waste Management Partnership Residual Waste Treatment Contract attached.
