An article published on WalesOnline entitled Friends of Earth rubbishes waste incineration plan describes FoE Cymru’s consultation submission to the draft Welsh waste strategy.

The submission criticised the Welsh Assembly Government’s waste strategy for “not going far enough to meet the challenges of climate change and diminishing resources”.

FoE Cymru described the draft strategy as a “step in the right direction” while calling for more ambitious recycling targets, a far greater emphasis on reducing waste, and an abandonment of incineration as an option for dealing with waste.

Keeping incineration on the table seriously risks undermining targets for recycling and waste reduction.

Gordon James, director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, said:

While the Assembly Government’s target of achieving 70% recycling by 2025 is a step in the right direction, we have to be more ambitious. Parts of Europe, such as Flanders and Germany, are already achieving this rate, so we believe we should be aiming for 70% recycling by 2015 and 80% by 2020.

We also want to see a much greater emphasis on waste reduction. Wales could become a zero waste nation, in which residual waste has been eliminated by 2030 rather than the proposed target of 2050. This is far too long to wait given the current environmental problems we face. Bold and urgent action is necessary now.

The Assembly Government’s own consultants have stated that it is fundamental that recycling becomes an option for waste management only after reduction and reuse. Without significant waste reduction, even 70% recycling by 2025 would fail to meet the Assembly Government’s own target to reduce Wales’ ‘ecological footprint’ to a fair 1.88 global hectares per person.

Jake Griffiths, leader of the Wales Green Party, urged the Welsh Assembly Government to support not just recycling but reusable packaging. According to Griffiths, a return to the widespread use of bottles would mean more people would drink locally produced milk.

Milk contained in plastic cartons, he argued, was more likely to have been transported over a long distance, and the plastic might be sent as far away as China to be recycled. He did not believe that more use of incineration would help encourage recycling and called for bolder targets.

Friends of the Earth Cymru called attention to controversial proposals to build incinerators in Cardiff, Barry and Merthyr Tydfil to justify their concerns about the inclusion of incineration in the draft strategy. Their Director said:

Incineration should not be part of any waste strategy. It is not a green technology as it produces toxic ash, emits excessive amounts of carbon dioxide, and its use would weaken incentives to reduce waste and boost recycling.

The case for incineration is based on the unrealistic assumption that all residual waste could be incinerated and that all the ash is reusable.

In practice, less than 50% of the ash could be used and a significant amount of this would be hazardous waste. There are no suitable landfill sites for these residues in Wales, so they would need to be exported elsewhere.

While it is encouraging that the Assembly Government is addressing how we need to deal with our waste, there is still a lot of work to do if we are going to transform Wales into a truly zero waste society.

UKWIN also made submissions to the WAG Waste Strategy consultation. Download the main UKWIN submission and the young persons submission.

The Institute for Zero Waste in Africa has also contributed to the consultation! Download the Institute for Zero Waste in Africa submission.