01 August 2010

UK may have to import rubbish for incinerators

'.. Environmental groups are demanding an end to the building of new waste incinerators, which they say will undermine recycling. Experts question whether Britain will produce enough household waste to fuel energy-from-waste plants as the country improves its recycling efforts. And they warn that waste will have to be diverted from sustainable recycling schemes or imported from elsewhere to keep a rash of new planned waste incinerators working ..'

This is surely just a natural progression from earlier issues about ESCC capping recycling so that more rubbish can be channelled to the Newhaven incinerator

'.. county council has this week (March 17) disputed claims by Lewes Liberal Democrats that its current recycling credits scheme is limiting the amount of waste that can be recycled in the county in order to ensure enough material for the energy-from-waste facility at Newhaven ..'

ESCC plans overhaul of Waste Collection Authority (WCA) recycling incentives

Let us not forget that the major residue with incineration is ash and this is one of the materials ESCC intends to use in land raise sites

'.. for every four tons of trash burned you get at least one ton of ash: 90% is called bottom ash (that is the ash collected under the furnace) and 10% is the very toxic fly ash. ..'

Although we have already addressed this issue in the past a timely reminder might be in order

ESCC Newhaven Incinerator Dangerous Residues and Emissions

Unfortunately having made a questionnable decision in the first place about building the incinerator (in the face of about 14,000 ignored objections) it now seems as though East Sussex County Council (ESCC) intends to compound the the issue by dumping the highly toxic ash residue on land raise sites in the Low Weald

Don't think that you will not be affected because Newhaven is a few miles away from where you live - ESCC Newhaven Incinerator - Do You Think You Are Safe From Contamination

Just how stupid can ESCC get?

December 2009

The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) White Paper on Waste and Climate Change puts forth the technologies and mechanisms which can transform the waste sector into a net global reducer of GHG emissions, and making the necessary commitments to assist this change

ISWA White Paper on Waste and Climate Change (PDF - 4Mb)

Wednesday 17 March 2010

East Sussex County Council has today refuted claims that there is a limit on the amount of waste that can be recycled in the county

County Council refutes claims about recycling

Obviously something has stung ESCC into making this press release - unfortunately due to the specious nature of ESCC and the semantics used in the release it is virtually impossible to pin them down on the truth

Of course one has to ask how this latest ESCC Press Release reconciles with the following statement from Ms Miller in October 2007 where the ESCC CEO unequivocably stated that 'capping' was in existance!

'.. At a public inquiry last November, it emerged why the county is so keen to ‘cap’ the money it pays to the five districts.

ESCC’s chief executive Cheryl Miller wrote an email to them on 4 October 2007 in which she said: ‘If we were to pay recycling credits above the agreed thresholds, then the residents of East Sussex would, in effect, be paying twice for every tonne as we are now paying Veolia to develop the infrastructure to manage this waste.’

In other words, the contract with Veolia includes payments by the county council for services which duplicate the recycling activity in the five districts. The upshot of this is that there is not just a lack of incentive to recycle, but the funding for recycling disappears once the five districts reach the level of recycling the county has allocated for them. This is totally against government policy, and against the obvious dictates of environmental reality ..'

Perhaps ESCC Press Office (spin machine) should research the historical facts before issuing questionnable statements see - The Great Incinerator Scandal. So in the light of the previous comments from Ms Miller - who is not telling the truth?

Anyway judge for yourself in the light of the threads below whether ESCC are trying to put a spin on the situation. For instance, if there was no issue then why does ESCC need to 'overhaul the incentive scheme it has in place to reward the recycling performance of district and borough councils' ( ESCC plans overhaul of Waste Collection Authority (WCA) recycling incentives )

Reference Other Threads

ESCC Report on Lack of integration Between WCA's & WDA December 2001

Recycling in East Sussex - 5 December 2001

Excerpt from the report

3. Current Position In East Sussex

3.1 At the present time the waste service in East Sussex is disjointed and lacks integration between the Waste Collection Authorities (WCAs) and the Waste Disposal Authority (WDA). The overall recycling performance is approximately 10% but at the Household Waste Recycling Sites, operated by the County Council, this figure is running in excess of 25%. A great deal of work has been done to promote joint working between the WDA and WCAs and key officer and member groups have been established. Appendix 3 illustrates some of the groups that are involved in trying to draw together an integrated approach to waste management in this area.

3.2 Until such time as there is a firm proposal from the WDA it is extremely unlikely that the WCAs will wish to commit themselves in any way to future joint working arrangements. The flowchart in Appendix 4 illustrates the inter-relationships between the two tier waste structure and the achievement of recycling.

3.3 Another important factor in this arrangement is the issue of recycling credits. At the present time WCAs are entitled to receive recycling credits from the WDA for waste that they recycle and do not present to the WDA. The only discretion that the WDA has in this process, is that the WCA must seek prior agreement/approval to the introduction of new schemes, in order to legitimately request recycling credits.

Recycling in East Sussex - 5 December 2001

Whose responsibility was it at ESCC to ensure that this process was straight forward and ran smoothly? Perhaps Councillor Peter Jones and Cheryl Miller could between them let us know how any breakdown in the processes was allowed to occur and more importantly potentially not be resolved for a considerable time 

Are we once again being presented with the concept of REWARD FOR FAILURE which is starting to become a recurring theme with ESCC waste disposal policy?

19 March 2010

East Sussex county council has outlined plans to resolve its 'strained' relationship with its district and borough councils by overhauling the incentive scheme it has in place to reward their recycling performance

East Sussex plans overhaul of WCA recycling incentives

'.. county council has this week (March 17) disputed claims by Lewes Liberal Democrats that its current recycling credits scheme is limiting the amount of waste that can be recycled in the county in order to ensure enough material for the energy-from-waste facility at Newhaven ..'

We have raised this issue in the past and so have many others including Norman Baker (see below). In fact it was also raised from the floor at the Hailsham meeting in January

Norman Baker in Parliament - House of Commons Hansard Debates for 02 July 2009

'.. T7. [283410] Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD): The Government rightly promote recycling, but is the Minister aware that Lewes district council’s recycling levels have effectively been capped at 27 per cent. by East Sussex county council, which will not provide further recycling credits because it wants a waste stream to feed its incinerator? Is it not about time that East Sussex county council was pulled out of the stone age and that councils that want to recycle more, such as Lewes council, which believes it can increase recycling by 50 per cent., were allowed to get on with it? ..

and on each occasion the matter was raised ESCC denied that there was an issue. In the light of this latest initiative does it mean that we have all been LIED to in the past by ESCC - would ESCC care to comment? If this is the case then heads should roll.  

The following statement is completely laughable - adopting the age old maxim of taking credit for correcting a situation that one caused in the first place; political spin at its best

'.. Commenting on the proposals, East Sussex county council leader, Peter Jones, said: "This is yet another great example of partnership working that will help all local authorities in East Sussex to manage household waste more sustainably and efficiently ..'

Of course the underlying question has to be - how did the situation arise in the first place and why until now have ESCC denied (lied about) it. ESCC cannot deny that it existed because otherwise they would not now be looking at an overhaul

Is this yet another example of REWARD FOR FAILURE where no blame is attached to the architects of these schemes - precisely where does the 'buck stop' at East Sussex County Council?

Clearly this issue was know about by ESCC Wealden April 2009 - B. resolving the recycling credit issues and yet when ever questionned on the subject ESCC gave misleading answers

Reference: Lewes District Council - Recycling Services (Feb 2008) (Word) OR HTML Version

Point 14:

'.. East Sussex County Council’s refusal to pay recycling credits beyond the estimates of recycling levels that were given in 2004 is a serious constraint on the finance available for investment in recycling. The five Boroughs and Districts in East Sussex are in dispute with ESCC. If ESCC will not change its position the matter may have to be resolved by court action ..'

Norman Baker - Parliamentary Report Hansard (02 July 2009)

'.. T7. [283410] Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD): The Government rightly promote recycling, but is the Minister aware that Lewes district council’s recycling levels have effectively been capped at 27 per cent. by East Sussex county council, which will not provide further recycling credits because it wants a waste stream to feed its incinerator? Is it not about time that East Sussex county council was pulled out of the stone age and that councils that want to recycle more, such as Lewes council, which believes it can increase recycling by 50 per cent., were allowed to get on with it? ..'

'.. Hilary Benn: If the hon. Gentleman would care to write to me with the details of the point that he has just raised, I will happily look at them ..'

One idea why concerns the Newhaven incinerator - for incinerators to be profitable, they need lots and lots of waste to burn; and it needs to operate at a profit because of course it is going to be privately run

As a consequence of this ESCC now proposes to use land raise to store all the rubbish it won't let us recycle

With the above comment in mind the questions really have to be:

• Has ESCC used its power to limit the amount of recycling that the District Council is allowed to do?
• Has ESCC approach resulted in the need for land raise sites?