3 December 2010
Greens call for "optimistic and flexible" alternative approach - at least 70% recycling by 2020
and for "much tougher" approach to the supermarkets over "wasteful practices"
The Essex County Council/Southend Borough consultation on the Essex Waste Development Document closed yesterday (2nd December).
Essex Green Party Co-ordinator James Abbott has submitted a detailed response to the hundreds of pages of documents (available on request).
The Waste Document is the early stage of developing a replacement to the Essex Waste Plan. But despite the huge progress in Essex on recycling, the new Plan, which runs to the year 2031, still includes waste burning.
The Document does contain a welcome intention to reduce landfill significantly, but is heavily reliant on at least 3 "waste factories" - currently planned for Stanway, Basildon and Rivenhall. These would take hundreds of thousands of tonnes a year of black bag waste and mash it up, producing a material likely to be incinerated - even though Essex County Council will not admit to it being incineration.
Cllr. James Abbott, who helped lead the campaign against the proposed regional major waste site and incinerator at Rivenhall Airfield said
"Essex has made huge progress in recycling in the last decade, with residents working alongside their local councils to steadily reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.
Yet this new Plan from Essex County Council still relies on waste incineration, although they carefully avoid using the term. Incineration has been rejected by Essex residents in earlier consultations.
Previous waste forecasts for Essex were pessimistic about recycling, and this new Plan is too. It specifies the EU target of 50% household waste recycling/composting by 2020 and the Essex target of 60% by 2020. Yet a number of Essex local authorities are already approaching these levels. Braintree District's current performance is an excellent 56%, and the rate is going up year on year. Uttlesford District has achieved similar rates and has been recycling more than half its waste almost every month for the last 4 years.
If the 3 waste factories, which Essex County Council supports, get built, they will require large volumes of non-recycled waste to operate - acting as a strong disincentive to reduce waste at source and to recycle that which is produced.
Essex Green Party supports a recycling target of at least 70% for municipal (largely household) waste by the year 2020. We think that is entirely possible given the political will. To deliver this, we want to see a decentralised network of innovative waste processing schemes that are local to the areas they serve, and don't draw in waste from London and beyond - which is what the Rivenhall Airfield incinerator (1) would do if it is built.
The County Council should be encouraging local entrepreneurs, community groups and local councils to deliver a wide range of sustainable waste processing schemes (2). We need a Plan that is optimistic and flexible - not based on huge waste factories that are likely to be run by multi-national companies with little financial interest in the waste stream being steadily reduced.
Another key policy should be waste reduction at source. For years, supermarkets and other major retailers have been making green claims, but some have persisted with churning out large volumes of excessive packaging - which residents end up paying for through landfill tax. Essex should be getting much tougher with the supermarkets which still have wasteful practices."
ENDS
For further information:
Essex Green Party Co-ordinator Cllr. James Abbott
01376 584576
07951 923073
Notes:
1. The Rivenhall Airfield "eRCF" major waste site proposal includes a waste incinerator burning 360,000 tonnes of waste a year - equivalent to about half of all the household waste currently produced in Essex. It would import waste from London and counties beyond. Essex County Council controversially gave planning permission in 2009, despite just one letter of support against over 800 objections from residents, local councils and groups. ECC then used public money to back the scheme at the subsequent Public Inquiry, again in conflict with local people, councils and groups.
2. The Green Party has long proposed a decentralised approach to waste facilities in Essex and is backing the proposed Halstead Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant, subject to planning details.
The range of possible technologies and systems that Essex could develop or expand includes:
- AD, which can be on existing industrial estates or farm scale units to turn food and other bio wastes to compost and gas. Methane produced from AD could be used for combined heat and power or even put into the mains gas supply after treatment. Getting bio waste out of landfill is a key driver of EU and UK waste policy
- Food waste collections from houses and the commercial sector, which can be taken for composting in open windrow or closed vessel units. This would also be vital to supplying a network of AD units
- Materials recovery - on industrial estates, such as the paper and metals recovery firms operating at Witham
- Furniture re-use through charities and community groups; more such schemes across Essex
- Batteries and electrical equipment recycling - this is becoming more widespread but is still at an early stage
- Expanding recycling centres further to allow more materials to be accepted and also to accept clean commercial waste that can be recycled - currently this is banned and can end up in landfill or being dumped
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