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Green Party Statement on the County Council's decision to incineration Oxfordshire's domestic waste
1st November 2005
At a Cabinet meeting on 6th September, the County Council's ruling Conservatives decided to back ‘Combined Heat and Power’ as the solution for dealing with Oxfordshire's domestic waste. This decision was reported to a full meeting of the County Council on 1st November.
The decision was based on the advice of the Environment Scrutiny Review
‘Energy from Waste’ July 2005. Members of this Review Group were Catehrine
Bearder (former LibDem Councillor), Cllr. Patrick Greene (Conservative)
and Cllr Terry Joslin (Labour).
The Greens utterly refute the findings of the Review Group and the subsequent decision of the Cabinet to back Combined Heat and Power.
Firstly, Combined Heat and Power (CHP) is a technology – NOT a fuel or a waste management strategy.
The report is talking about Energy from Waste which means incineration. The use of any other term is merely meant to cloud the issue. In fact, the report mentions that the way in which waste treatment plants are described is important to make the technology more publicly acceptable. Hence the decision, no doubt, to hijack 'combined heat and power' which actually just refers to whether or not the waste heat from any energy generation process is captured. CHP can be powered by gas, renewable wood fuel, waste or a range of other fuels. Clearly, it is preferable to capture waste heat rather than let it escape - but this does not mean that all fuels are equally acceptable.
There are no easy answers to waste management but there are options which do not use incineration.
The preferred Green alternative is to adopt a 'zero waste strategy' to minimise waste, recycle the maximum amount through home separation and then Mechanical and Biological Treatment of the remaining waste – a process by which waste is mechanically sorted and treated to extract useful materials and reduce the toxicity of the remainder. The compostable matter can then be used in an aerobic digester to extract some energy from the methane which is emitted as the matter decomposes.
The Review report dismisses MBT on the basis that some current systems burn the residual waste from an MBT plant rather than treating it further. Hence it is argued that MBT is therefore no different from incineration. This is absurd.
The reality is that you cant beat the basic laws of thermodynamics. You can either reclaim materials for recycling /reuse or burn them to extract energy from them. If you take out all the useful materials there is not much left to burn. What remains is often a soggy mess which will not easily burn without energy first being required to dry it.
The arguments used by proponents of incineration are reminiscent of those used to
support the introduction of nuclear power when it was claimed that it would be ‘too cheap to meter’.
It is possible with MBT-based system to divert 85% of waste from landfill. That is the only sensible and sustainable way forward.
By accepting incineration, the Council is acknowledging that it is not up to the challenge of properly managing the County's waste.
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