Burning garbage.

It’s a topic that has caused much debate among the residents of the region.

And while many were hopeful the project would get the stamp of disapproval, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) has given the proposed Energy-from-Waste (EFW) facility a green light.

The minister granted the project’s Environmental Assessment (EA) approval early in November but the decision was just announced late last week.

This means the project can move ahead, be built and operated, but the approval comes with strict conditions, the MOE says.

The facility must operate under stringent air emission requirements that are among the toughest in the world, its emissions will be monitored and reported and there will be daily inspections of the site. A public advisory committee must also be formed so that the community can continue to be involved in the project, the province says.

In addition, the Ontario government demands waste only be accepted if it can’t be recycled.

“Our priority is to ensure that public health and the environment are fully protected. That’s why we put tough conditions in place to protect air quality,” says John Wilkinson,
minister of the environment.

But Clarington Mayor-Elect Adrian Foster says the community is still not buying into the idea.

“The community is clearly not happy with the concept of an incinerator,” he says.

“I’m not surprised at all with the approval of the MOE. But I am very disappointed about the timing.”

Foster says with a new regional council set to start meetings Dec. 8; the issue deserves to be debated among the new council.

Regional Chair Roger Anderson was granted approval by outgoing councillors to sign off on the agreement with Covanta, the company slated to build the facility, should he choose to, Foster says.

“We’re in never-never land on that. It sure puts Roger Anderson in an awkward spot,” he adds.

If Chair Anderson signs the agreement with Covanta, and regional council decides to fight against the project, it could cost big dollars, Foster explains.

“The cost to the taxpayers could be significant,” he says, adding 13 newly elected councillors have made their stance in opposition of the EFW public.

Durham began seeking an effective way to handle residual waste back in 2004, which led to launching the Durham Residual Waste Disposal Study EA.

But in May 2005 Durham made the decision to form a partnership with the Municipality of York. The partnership would see York’s garbage burned in the Durham facility, which was ultimately proposed for Courtice. The consultant’s recommendation was a 12-hectare site located between Courtice Road and Osbourne Road.

York and Durham councils passed approval on the EA back in June 2009. It was late-July 2009 that the EA was submitted to the MOE.

“After carefully examining the options, consulting with the public and various experts, we determined an energy-from-waste (EFW) facility was the most reasonable method to deal with residual waste. With the approval of the EA, the province has recognized the need for this facility and that we are committed to the protection of human health and the environment. The EA acknowledges that our EFW is a viable option for the future of waste management in Ontario,” says Chair Anderson.

The facility will be capable of processing up to 140,000 tonnes of post-diversion residual waste—the waste that remains after composting and recycling.

It uses a thermal mass burn technology, which means Durham’s solid waste will be fed into a furnace where it is burned at very high temperatures.

The ash is then shipped to a landfill or reused in product manufacturing, the region says.

The EFW process also includes production of high-pressure steam, which is fed through a turbine generator to produce electricity and/or hot water energy that can be used for district heating in the future.

Operating at 140,000 tonnes a year, enough power would be generated to power 10,000 homes, while the district heating produced could heat the equivalent of 2,200 homes, the region explains.

Construction on the facility is “anticipated for 2011 with a target operation date of 2014,” the region says in a release.

“For too long, we have trucked our garbage hundreds of kilometres to someone else’s backyard. This is not a sustainable solution,” says Commissioner of Works Cliff Curtis. “This energy-from-waste facility will release less greenhouse gas over its lifetime than our current long-haul disposal practice. The MOE has imposed extremely strict limits on our air emissions, but we can achieve them. This demonstrates the EFW facility will operate in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.”

But residents in Courtice and Oshawa are not entirely convinced.

“There are three main concerns. One is lack of meaningful consultation…they (residents) are concerned about the health and environmental concerns…and lastly the business case is very scary,” adds Foster.

View the original Burning Garbage article here

AN action group in Hartlebury is calling for a cheaper alternative to a planned incinerator, after Worcestershire County Council revealed it must save up to £70 million by 2015.

Worcestershire Residents Against Incineration and Landfill (WAIL) was formed in opposition to plans to build a £120 million waste processing plant at Hartlebury Industrial Estate.

In response to the county council’s budget announcement earlier this month, WAIL chairman, Ray Kirby, said: “There are reported to be 750 job losses at the county and massive budget cuts but under the proposed public finance initiative the mortgage interest costs alone [relating to the waste plant project]could be estimated at £5 million per year, before repayment begins.”

He asked: “How many front line jobs and services to vulnerable people does that equate to?

“Is it wise to commit to a £120 million mortgage for 25 years at this uncertain and cash-constrained time?”

He said the county could save half the cost of the proposed incinerator – a saving of around £60 million – by opting for anaerobic digestion to divert biodegradable waste from landfill.

A county council spokesman said: “The county council carried out an options appraisal of all current comparable technologies during its recent review of the Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy.

“It concluded that over a 25-year period a single energy from waste facility is the best overall solution for dealing with residual waste in Worcestershire and Herefordshire.”

He added: “This appraisal is available at the website at worcestershire.gov.uk and ranks energy from waste as having a lower life cycle cost than other technologies.”

View the original article here

Grundon Waste Management had applied to build an incinerator with a 90,000 tonne capacity, but councillors rejected the bid last year.

Dismissing Grundon’s appeal, the Scottish Government Reporter said the proposed development would have an “over-dominant” impact on the area.

Grundon said it would evaluate the full report and review its options.

The £100m scheme had faced considerable opposition from local residents, who were concerned the incinerator would blight Perth for “decades to come”.

Councillors voted against the plans for an “energy from waste” plant at Shore Road in Perth in November 2009.

The plan was rejected on eight grounds, including objections to the size of the site and an 80m (262ft)-high chimney stack.

Following the Scottish government ruling, Jim Irons, depute chief executive of Perth and Kinross Council, said: “We were always confident of the outcome but are obviously happy that the reporter has now made the decision to dismiss the appeal.

“I would like to thank all our staff who have worked hard to provide justification for the council’s decision and members of the community who have also fought to resist this development.”

Mid-Scotland and Fife Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser said he welcomed the decision, saying the decision by the SNP-led council to issue planning permission in principle for the development had been a “clear mistake”.

He added: “I believe that special praise needs to go to Bridgend, Gannochy and Kinnoull Community Council, who worked tirelessly to highlight the flaws in the application and the damage that the incinerator would bring to Perth.

“It is due to the hard work and dedication of campaigners that we have finally received the good news of refusal for the incinerator.”

A spokeswoman for Grundon said the company was pleased that the reporter had found many positive points in the application.

“Taking all these matters into account, Grundon will now evaluate the full report in detail and review its options – which may include an assessment of alternative technologies and plant designs for use on the Shore Road site,” she said.

View the original article here

Published on Mon Nov 22 17:34:02 GMT 2010

GOVERNMENT minister and local MP Henry Bellingham is urging Norfolk County Council to suspend the proposed £150m-plus waste incinerator scheme at Lynn and to examine safer options.

In an exclusive interview with Lynn News senior writer Mike Last, the NW Norfolk MP called on the county council to hold public polls in Lynn and villages near the incinerator site at the Willows Business Park in South Lynn.

Only then, he said, would the authority get a real understanding of local public opinion about the proposal – and the majority view should hold sway.

Last week, the county council cabinet chose Anglo-US company Cory Wheelabrator as its preferred bidder for the “energy from waste” plant, which would be capable of treating 170,000 tonnes of black bin waste and a further 90,000 tonnes of commercial waste each year.

It means that proposals will now be drawn up and a planning application submitted for the new plant, which will also be able to produce energy for the National Grid and heating for nearby homes and factories.

But Mr Bellingham is concerned that a £20m compensation clause that the county council could face if its own planners fail to give the project the go-ahead, as revealed by the Lynn News, represents a “conflict of interest”.

He explained: “The scheme won’t be able to be looked at completely independently because there will be this question of £20m compensation influencing the planning committee.”

He said: “I have never known a project with more opposition to it – it’s absolutely massive – and it’s not based just around technology but the impact on health.

“Norfolk County Council cannot say categorically that this plant will not affect health.”

The authority was confidently stating that bigger particles emitted through the process would be filtered out. But it could not say that certain nano or micro particles escaping the filters would not damage health, and a lot of the concerns were focused on that aspect, he added.

Mr Bellingham said the county council had also not satisfied him that it was doing all it could to increase recycling rates significantly and examine other options for dealing with household and business waste.

He pointed out that Milan and other Italian cities had managed to boost their recycling rates from 20 per cent to about 80 per cent, through reducing packaging and greatly enhancing their recycling policies.

He feared Norfolk was factoring in a reduction in its effort to increase recycling from the current level of under 40 per cent by bringing in the incinerator.

But if it increased recycling to 80 per cent or more, and had anaerobic digestion facilities or mechanical biological treatment plants, like the one at Waterbeach recently featured in the Lynn News, an incinerator would not be needed, he said.

The MP said that in these tough economic times using £169m of Government grant, and a total cost of £500m to the taxpayer, over the 25-year life of the incinerator was “not a good use of public money”.

He pointed out: “The Government is looking very closely at all outstanding Private Finance Initiative credits and there must be a strong possibility of that PFI credit being cancelled because there is a continuing review by the Treasury and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”

If NCC still wants the incinerator, it must consult with people in Lynn and nearby villages like West Winch, North Runcton, North and South Wootton and the Wiggenhalls, through holding ballots, with the Electoral Commission overseeing the process, he said.

“I hope the county council will commit to having local referenda – and if people don’t vote in favour of the incinerator they don’t have to have it,” he added.

View the original article here

Controversial plans to build a waste incinerator on the edge of King’s Lynn could be halted because of an old land agreement, it emerged last night.

Land Registry documents unearthed by campaigners opposed to plans for an “energy from waste” plant reveal a covenant placed on the land by a previous owner prevents it being used for commercial production of electricity.

If the county council does not overturn the clause then its £169m project at the Saddlebow industrial estate could be thrown into jeopardy.

However last night the authority said it was just a “matter of negotiation” and was working hard to overturn the land agreement.

Anti-incinerator campaigner Mike Knights said the documents came to light after a fellow campaigner, a solicitor, researched the Land Registry.

He said: “It came as quite a shock to us when we found out about this covenant even though we had our suspicions something like this was in place.

“The county council has claimed that this is the best site in Norfolk for an incinerator and that it is the most sensible place for generating electricity.

“But if this covenant isn’t removed then one of their main justifications for its existence will be prohibited.

“For the council to reach this stage without having it removed is an act of incompetence if ever I saw one and a show stopper in my opinion.”

The King’s Lynn incinerator, if built, would be capable of treating 170,000 tonnes of black bin waste as well as a further 90,000 tonnes of commercial waste.

Mr Knights continued: “The council will really have a problem on its hands if the previous owner who put this covenant in place won’t budge.

“The council is committed to this site because all its other options have been burnt so the authority is really not in a strong position at the moment.

“But this also means that it is not good news for taxpayers because it will be our money that might be needed to pay the previous owner to overturn this covenant.”

He added: “We are not sure who put this covenant in place but we think a power company may have been involved with the land at some point and didn’t want a competitor to get their hands on the land.”

Norfolk County Council has said it is aware of the covenant and that it is “not a show stopper” in its quest for an incinerator in West Norfolk.

A county council spokesman said: “With any land acquisition, there are always various issues that need to be overcome to make the site useable.

“As far as a covenant is concerned, while discussions in relation to all aspects of this contract are continuing we simply can’t comment on this particular aspect at the moment.

“But I would point out that land covenants are not only very common but they are also entirely negotiable.”

The spokesman did not reveal who the council is in discussions with regarding the covenant but hinted it could be the previous site owners.

He continued: “If built, this power and recycling centre at Saddlebow would save Norfolk residents about £8 million every year compared to using landfill to get rid of our rubbish.

“It would also help local businesses avoid the escalating cost of landfill. At times when public and private finances are under so much pressure this is a rare ray of sunshine.”

The county council has recently come under criticism after it emerged the authority could face a compensation bill of up to £20m if the planned waste incinerator does not go ahead.

A contract is likely to be signed early next year between the council and its preferred bidder, Cory Wheelabrator, for the controversial plant.

Arctic blasts are set to hit Norfolk this weekend, with snow predicted just as Norwich gets ready for the East Anglian football derby and the half marathon.

View the original article here

The United Kingdom (UK) has traditionally used landfill disposal as the main method of waste management. However, it has long been recognised that landfilling is unsustainable due to its long term harmful effects on the environment and public health.

Landfill also places a high long term risk on groundwater quality, which could threaten the availability of clean water for future generations.

Under the European Union (EU) Landfill Directive, and starting in 2006, member nations were required to divert biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) from landfills. The UK has also committed to the EU Renewable Energy Directive, which binds it to sourcing at least 15% of its energy mix from renewables by 2020.

Through the last decade the emphasis was on recycling, and this is still the case, but recycling will only achieve waste diversion up to a point. Therefore, to meet these targets, the UK is developing alternative waste management options as well as planning to achieve considerable deployment of renewables.

Throughout 2009 a number of aspects of UK waste management policy that have been in place for some time came together so that for the first time a genuine shift in the industry could be detected. Investors began to see the wisdom of those that have already anticipated this new vision and have committed to investment in the waste technologies, as many of the smaller more nimbly operators have begun to make profits. Where profit is to be made others will now follow to secure waste contracts for the resource that collected material provides them.

If asked what the single biggest influence on this was during 2009, I would say it as the government’s Landfill Tax escalator policy which meant that for most waste disposers, for the first time, landfill disposal actually became more expensive than recycling. You can argue around the detail here, but I had not before the summer of 2009 witnessed recycling companies able to say they could offer price competitive disposal prices when head to head with the traditional landfill operators.

Another major driving force in UK waste management which is powering the evolution from a disposal problem to a resource optimisation opportunity are the high targets for waste diversion from landfill, and 20 year or longer integrated waste management contracts. These are public/private partnership projects which the UK government is pushing ahead with now in order to achieve those targets.

Here to, we saw a major milestone achieved while the recession was biting the hardest early in 2009. This was the successful planning application, and award of contract, for the £4 billion Greater Manchester Waste PFI Contract, the largest of its kind in Europe, and all built upon stakeholder involvement. However, the Greater Manchester PFI Contract is only the most high profile example of a procurement revolution which probably reached its peak of activity during 2009, and saw similar contracts either largely in place or planned throughout the nation.

The year also saw a number of these projects hit the headlines, and some Energy from Waste schemes being pushed back at planning (Cornwall and Edinburgh for example).

However, the trend continued and accelerated so that for all waste streams and/or locations where re-use or recycling of waste is not viable, energy recovery is being reinforced as the preferred option, with disposal used only as a last resort.

For a long while the major Energy from Waste producer has been from landfills, and it has been landfill gas (LFG) utilisation. However, the relative importance to LFG utilisation as a proportion of total energy from waste production will now be expected to decline.

Each month in the years to come we will see the rollout of new energy from waste (EfW) projects coming on-stream. However, while the adoption of new waste technologies is being supported in the UK by government departments, the perceived high risk for the PFI partnerships, has remained high. 2009 was not good for implementing the more innovative of these.

The increased cautiousness of the banks funding the private element of these projects has come at a very unfortunate time, as it has in my view severely detracted against the bankability of schemes using these new technologies. In fact, 2009 saw the shelving of quite a number of the more adventurous new waste technology options in favour of more traditional incineration technology.

During the year events also reinforced the wisdom of encouraging the use of EfW and other home grown renewable energy source, within the global scene. Most will remember that early in 2009 we saw the deep rationing of natural gas supplies to some European nations which were themselves unconnected with a producer country dispute. This held up supplies during the coldest weather and in a completely arbitrary fashion.

Most now strongly support the benefits of renewable energy for its improved energy supply security, ability to provide climate change mitigation when combined with stiff recycling targets and the highest possible waste diversion, and not least its resource efficiency.

However, good though that may be for waste as an opportunity, the main event of the year was the new found security to the recyclers which came with the attainment of the economic tipping point, whereby landfilling has become more expensive than most forms of main stream recycling activity. From now on the markets in recyclates will operate on a progressively more stable and normal economic basis.

Recycling has always made sense for the environment, but from now on it will also become a natural economically favourable option as well We can also look forward to the future knowing that the landfill tax will rise again in April 2010, taking us further into the new UK era of waste as a resource of opportunity.

Just when will our society realise that when everyone produces such large quantities of waste, the waste HAS to be processed and disposed of somehow, and somewhere, and that it is unreasonable to expect to send it out of the area in which the waste was created!

In our first case the Surrey County Council Energy from Waste (EfW) facility, which only received planning permission in October 2008, now looks set to face further delays after a successful challenge against its development by the local parish council. Surrey Waste Management’s proposal for the facility at the Clockhouse Brickworks site in Capel, Surrey, has suffered a myriad of set-backs and challenges since the original planning permission, granted as far back as 2002, was overturned.

An official judgment is expected to have been made by the end of February (after this issue has gone to press). The 100000 tonnes capacity facility was intended to be operational in 2012 as part of a PFI-funded deal between Sita subsidiary, Surrey Waste Management, and the county council.

Our second problem waste processing facility in Cornwall has been rejected and new plans must be drawn up, so the problem is really serious for the citizens of Cornwall. The following is an extract from the BBC News item highlighting the problem:

New county waste plans ‘needed’

An alternative strategy for dealing with Cornwall’s waste needs to be drawn up as soon as possible, a council scrutiny committee has ruled.

The call to Cornwall Council comes after plans by waste company Sita for an incinerator at St Dennis were refused two weeks ago.

Sita then withdrew proposals for a waste centre at Scorrier last week.

The council will decide whether to follow the recommendation for a waste plan after elections later in the year.

Cornwall Council’s Environment Policy and Development Scrutiny Committee recommended that a dedicated panel be set up to look at alternatives.

The committee’s chairman, independent councillor Mark Kaczmarek, said: “It is essential that Cornwall has a clear way forward to deal with its waste.

“Our remaining landfill is running out. Far too much time and money has been wasted over the last few years and no solution to Cornwall’s waste disposal has been created. Cornwall Council must make this issue a priority.”

The full council will decide whether to follow the recommendation for a waste plan after it holds its elections in June.

County councillors voted 20-to-one on 26 March against Sita’s bid to build a waste-to-energy incinerator in the county. Planning officials had advised the council to grant the application.

The £117m waste-to-energy plant would have handled all of Cornwall’s waste – an estimated 240,000 tonnes of waste a year which would, in turn, have generated power for thousands of homes across the county. More here.

Wastequip operates 35 manufacturing facilities nationwide. The company has not announced how many plants might shut down as part of the restructuring. However, company spokesman Jerry Samson said fewer than 10 facilities will close.

“At this time, we´re still evaluating that,” Samson said. “All we really know is we´re going to have it complete by the end of the year. Right now, we don´t know the exact number of facilities because we´re still in that process, but we´ll probably have a pretty good idea of that in the next 45 to 60 days.”

Wastequip said it would offer the workers affected by the closings relocation opportunities or assistance in finding employment in their local communities.

The plants Wastequip closes will be among its older and least efficient facilities, according to the company. Efficiency improvements at newer plants have resulted in production capacity gains that eliminate the need for the less efficient plants, according to the company.

Wastequip also plans to benefit from green initiatives at its remaining plants that will include increased use of energy efficient lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning [HVAC] controls. The company´s Winamac, Ind., plant already has put those measures in place and received an environmental stewardship award from the Indiana governor´s office. More…

The waste centre will be called the Cornwall Energy Recovery Plant (CERC) and will burn residual waste and generate electricity which will be exported to the National Grid and heat which will be exported to local industry.

Energy-from-Waste (EfW) describes a number of technologies that extract value from waste. The benefit of this type of waste management is that value is recovered from waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill. The power generated is classed as a renewable energy and replaces fossil fuel energy production.

While they are developing the planning application for the Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre (CERC). At the same time they are taking part in a Community Liaison Group which provides local people and organisations with the opportunity to find out more about the proposals and to input their views into the planning application.

SITA held a pre-application exhibition at two venues near to the proposed site in January. Near to 500 people came along to see the plans, meet the experts and designers, ask questions and express their views.

Landfill sites are believed to be responsible for most of Europe’s current greenhouse gas emissions which derive from household waste.

However, the report from the European Environment Agency has predicted that domestic waste volumes will at the same time grow by 25% when compared to 2005 – providing ongoing challenges for the waste management industry.

According to the study – which used an economic model for projecting future waste volumes – greenhouse gases from European municipal waste will fall by more than 80% in 2020 when compared to the late 1980′s. This is a drop of more than 10 million tonnes.

The change is expected to derive from Europe’s success from diverting waste away from landfill for recycling and incineration, driven by legislation such as the Landfill Directive.

Methane from landfill sites is believed to be largely responsible for municipal waste contributing 2% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2005.

However, the EEA and partner the European Topic Centre of Resource and Waste Management have warned that increasing waste amounts could lead to “saturation” and increasing emissions if the waste was managed inefficiently. In particular, waste from European countries new to the EU is expected to grow, they said. More…