Saturday 28 August 2010

Incinerators, Burning Waste Is Toxic

Blogger Gideon Mack says that there is a plan to take Readings waste MDF to be burned in an incinerator in Kent!

As Greens we regularly campaign against incineration of waste. We want a zero waste strategy, not a scheme that encourages the production of more waste in order to feed an incinerator.

We should be producing much less waste, reduce, reuse & recycle; not burning rubbish and releasing harmful gases into the atmosphere. Waste incineration encourages councils not to bother with recycling or reducing waste. This is not the message we should be sending out.

The Greens say that burning rubbish encourages more waste, is inefficient in producing energy, wastes resources, produces pollution and still creates toxic ash which needs to be disposed of.

Some examples:
Surrey, Slough, Wales , Bristol, Yorkshire, Newcastle & Brighton.

5 comments:

Glenn said...

We had a scrutiny of Readings Waste PFI last year and I wasn't very impressed that our waste was going to the Slough incinerator! The sooner that can end, the better!

Now Labour are out of the equation in Reading you should see a lot of movement for the better in this area :D

All the best,

Glenn

NickJ said...

Are you against all forms of waste incineration, including those plants which generate electricity from it?

Adrian Windisch said...

Cheers Glenn, good luck with that.

Nick, I wish you would read the post before commenting. Zero waste is the answer. Burning it produces emissions, some bad for the environment.

I prefer renewable sources of power.

NickJ said...

Zero waste sounds to me like the paperless office and the unicorn, or at the very least something which would be amazingly expensive to achieve.

I was asking if you were against incineration in all forms, even those which have some practical benefit as well (so long as they aren't outweighed by the negative, naturally). I would be interested in comparative studies on the impact of landfilling, burning for power and recycling (as let's not forget that recycling is hardly emission-free).

Adrian Windisch said...

Zero waste would save money, not cost more.

Once more I suggest you read something about the subject before commenting.

Recently Rob White demonstrated how to live a year filling just one bin with waste. Perhaps you missed it.