Nottingham's Recycling Targets to go up in Smoke?
Nottingham

Nottingham's recycling targets are in danger of being dumped. Time is running out: the unsustainable policies of the past mean that the county's landfill sites are nearly full. Twenty six years ago, the City Council thought they could solve the problem by building an incinerator at Eastcroft, which was sold in 1996 to Yorkshire Water.
But that produces 50,000 tonnes of toxic ash each year, and pollutes the air across the city.
It is no solution.
In 3 years' time, the 94 000 tonnes of domestic waste which currently goes to the Burntstump landfill site each year will have nowhere to go. The County Council is inviting proposals from the private sector to dispose of this waste.
There will be no public consultation.

There should be a strong commitment to waste reduction and recycling. We are deeply concerned that the County's favoured solution may be an expansion of Eastcroft incinerator. This would mean: failure to meet recycling targets more pollution council tax increase due to increase in incineration costs.

The problems associated with waste incineration include:

Incinerators emit dangerous pollutants:

• dioxins - these are associated with cancer, deformities in unborn children; hormonal effects
• heavy metals - cadmium causes lung and kidney disease; mercury affects the nervous system
• dust particles - exacerbate asthma, chronic bronchitis and heart disease
• acid gases - also exacerbate asthma and chronic bronchitis.

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Incinerators create toxic ash

This still needs to be disposed of by landfill, and heavy metals leach into the groundwater.
One third of groundwater pollution is due to landfill.

Incinerators encourage acceptance that there is no need to reduce waste

Thus maintaining inefficiency and the destruction of valuable resources.
For an environmentally sustainable and equitable future in the UK we must reduce our resource consumption by 80-90%.

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Incinerators can be a disincentive to waste reduction and recycling, when operators impose penalties for failure to deliver a given weight or collection value.

Incinerators could prove more expensive than recycling in the long-term, if:

• litigation claims are made by people whose health has been harmed
• the landfill tax is extended to incineration
• the Government withdraws its subsidy for non fossil fuel forms of energy
• incinerators have to meet hazardous waste standards
• toxic ash is redesignated as hazardous waste.

European legislation of December 1996 tightened up emission standards, and more legislation is likely.

Coopers and Lybrand, in a European Commission report, predict that recycling will be cheaper than incineration in all European countries by 2001.

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Extending Eastcroft will knock back recycling for 15 years

Dashing hopes of councils in Greater Nottingham meeting their recycling targets.

Recycling creates far more jobs than incineration

For every million tonnes of waste that is processed:

• incineration creates approx. 100-290 jobs
• recycling creates approx. 400-590 jobs.

Recycling encourages community participation - incineration does not!

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Recycling saves more energy than incineration.

Although energy can be obtained from incineration, recycling paper saves 3 times as much energy as burning it, and recycling plastic saves 5 times as much.

Would you trust Yorkshire Water to incinerate waste safely??!

For more information contact Nigel Lee on 0115 978 8059

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Last updated 18 February 1999.