More rubbish burnt than recycled as councils feed firms’ incinerators Archived Message Posted by Gerard on December 6, 2019, 6:51 pm "England burnt more waste than it recycled last year, prompting campaigners to call for a moratorium on all new incinerator projects. Recycling rates have fallen over the past five years in more than half of local authority areas and the nation incinerated 11.2 million tonnes of rubbish last year, compared with recycling and composting 10.9 million tonnes. Critics say that the proliferation of energy-from-waste incinerators, which burn rubbish to provide electricity, has caused recycling to fall while adding to carbon emissions pollution. The plants were welcomed in the 1990s as a way to divert rubbish from landfill while also generating electricity. There are 42 fully operational energy-from-waste plants in Britain and a further 20 either under construction or in late-stage commissioning. South Tyneside, which is contracted to send 42,100 tonnes to such a privately run incinerator a year, burnt 66 per cent of its rubbish in 2018. Meanwhile, recycling rates have fallen from 41 per cent in 2014 to 33 per cent — far less than a national target to recycle half of all household waste by next year. Karl Williams, director of the Centre for Waste Management at the University of Central Lancashire, said that recycling rates were falling for reasons including local authorities changing what they collected; an increase in packaging that is harder to recycle; and a shift in focus to incinerators. “Energy-from-waste plants are designed to burn the material that can’t be recycled, so in an ideal world they shouldn’t impact on the amount of recycling,” he said. He added, though, that contracts entered into by local authorities created a “vicious circle — if you build it, you do need to feed it.” Campaigners say that much of the waste burnt in incinerators could be recycled or composted if sorted correctly. Data released by Cory Riverside Energy, which runs an incinerator in east London, showed that 28 per cent of the waste it burnt was paper and card, while 26 per cent was compostable material. The firm says that those materials were either put in the wrong bin or were too contaminated to recycle, such as pizza boxes that had absorbed grease. According to a report from UK Without Incineration Network, Britain’s incinerators released a combined total of nearly 11 million tonnes of CO2 in 2017 — around 5 million tonnes of which were from fossil sources such as plastic. They are not, however, subject to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which forces conventional power stations that burn fossil fuels to pay for emissions over an agreed level. If they were, the group calculates that incinerators should have paid around £325 million. Cory Riverside Energy disagreed, saying that high-efficiency plants saved 200kg of CO2 equivalent for every tonne of waste diverted from landfill. Local residents are also concerned about incinerators contributing to local air pollution. Public Health England has said, though, that there is little evidence of them doing so. “Modern, well-managed incinerators make only a small contribution to air pollutants. It is possible that such small additions could have an impact on health but such effects, if they exist, are likely to be very small and not detectable,”* it says." https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rise-of-the-incinerator-leads-to-more-waste-being-burnt-than-recycled-x7g5wpm6d#_=_ https://www.change.org/p/cllr-simon-christopher-chair-of-dorset-council-s-sw-planning-committee-stop-portland-waste-incinerator?recruiter=537773777&recruited_by_id=eecc8150-139a-11e6-9b98-67056748550d&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard *They told us this re: Marchwood incinerator, it is errant and dangerous b*ll*cks! https://www.arafel.co.uk/2014/08/the-great-dragon-incineration-what-you.html?spref=tw https://www.arafel.co.uk/2017/01/incineration-zerowaste-work-of-drpaul.html?spref=tw https://www.arafel.co.uk/2017/03/bad-air-reason-for-southampton-uks.html?spref=tw Message Thread: More rubbish burnt than recycled as councils feed firms’ incinerators - Gerard December 6, 2019, 6:51 pm Re: More rubbish burnt than recycled as councils feed firms’ incinerators - AlanG December 7, 2019, 9:47 am Collusion and Corruption.. - Gerard December 7, 2019, 10:12 am   Searching