Ring of Fire Incinerators

[crustychick]

Does anyone know anything about the plans for new incinerators in London. Someone I was talking to reckoned that there were plans for five new incinerators in South London creating a so-called "ring of fire" around the capital.

I can't really find any information on it on the web. I'd be grateful for any ideas and especially links.

Specifically - why are councils signing up to contracts with incinerators rather than promoting more recycling and composting. Is it just because we are running out rather rapidly of any landfill space (and with the imposed landfill tax) that we need a quick fix solution. For surely any contract that a council signs with an incinerator means that it has to provide a certain amount of waste over a long period of time.

Even if the new incinerators are Combined Heat and Power are we actually gaining more power back from burning the waste than we would spend on making that product again from scratch. etc.

Does anyone know any more?

 

[rich!]

did you google for http://www.google.com/search?q=incinerator+london by any chance? 'cos there's too much stuff on the first page to summarise.
Green party opposed this in Feb 2005. Other organisations against it; the mayor's lot suggested in 2003 that the use of other techniques ("mechanical biological treatment" in east london) will remove the need for any others, ...

 

[crustychick]

i did google for it but googled for ring of fire incinerators... perhaps that was my mistake

thanks

 

[rich!]

i did google for it but googled for ring of fire incinerators... perhaps that was my mistake

thanks

i have google-fu

anytime.

 

[greenman]

Councils are using landfill tax and EU landfill directive, as well as scarcity of remaining sites to push for vast increase in incineration, backed by heavily lobbied (i.e. bought) Blair government. We are looking at perhaps 2000 new "waste management facilities" being built around the country - many through 25 year plus, binding waste contracts making HUGE profits for the likes of Waste Recycling Group (WRG) and ONYX (Subsidiary of Veolia formerly Vivendi, international scumbags! ) This through lovely PFI projects (again promoted by nulabour at the behest of their corporate chums)
I draw a parallel with the current energy debate - the decline of the nuclear stations and the demand for cutting emissions is a once in a lifetime opportunity to go fully and committedly down the renewables and energy efficiency road - instead Blair is going to promote a new generation of Nukes (on the old sites, to reduce opposition - ignoring the vulnerability of many of these sites to global warming/sea level rise etc, but that is another question), opening a bottomless pit into which to pour public money.
In waste, there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to go for the waste utilisation route (AKA "minimal" or "zero waste") being followed by some of the most progressive and forward looking local authorities (in waste terms) around the world. Instead the Blairites are going for the easy (but nonsensically expensive and environmentally disastrous) way out - hand over vast amounts of money to incinerator companies, let them do some expensive PR about how "safe" and "modern" it is now (again shades of the nuclear debate) and then lock local areas into 25-30 years of handing over their waste to be burnt, disincentivising the larger increases in recycling and waste minimisation that are possible (it is potentially recyclable materials that have the highest calorific value for so-called "energy from waste" plants)
Nulabour, newcancer