UKWIN is a network of 110 campaigners and campaign groups from throughout the UK. Many of these will be represented at the AGM, where they will listen to guest speaker Alan Watson deliver a presentation tracing the history of the anti-incineration movement.

Alan Watson will deliver a presentation tracing the history of the anti-incineration movement

Mr Watson, Director of Public Interest Consultants, is a recognised expert on waste treatment and disposal, and a former a member of Environmental Protection Advisory Committee for the Environment Agency in Wales. He previously worked for the Department of the Environment and was the senior specialist on Industry and Pollution for Friends of the Earth.

Participants will also be treated to a presentation from waste statistician Keith Kondakor about current trends in waste reduction and how to use waste data to support anti-incineration campaigning.

UKWIN’s National Coordinator, Shlomo Dowen, will explain how his High Court victory means campaigners can use the Audit Commission Act to reveal the financial arrangements behind large waste contracts.

This year’s AGM will be hosted by the local Chesterfield, Derbyshire and Derby groups.

Julie Harrington of Chesterfield Against Incineration (CAI) explains:

The event is particularly timely as a decision by Derbyshire County Council on whether to refuse planning permission for an incinerator in Chesterfield is imminent.

The planning application from the Wales-based firm Cyclamax, for a hazardous, commercial waste incinerator on Dunston Road, Chesterfield has generated an over-whelming level of public opposition from both residents and businesses, with over 11,000 objections to date, as well as opposition from every parish, town, borough and district council in the area.

The event will be an opportunity for local waste campaign groups to compare notes with others from throughout the UK. UKWIN’s National Coordinator, Shlomo Dowen, is looking forward to the event.

Gatherings like this one are always uplifting for those involved. They combine the serious work of campaigning and the joy of being with like-minded people.

According to Friends of the Earth’s Keith Kondakor:

Incineration is a false solution. Using the Earth’s finite resources more efficiently and cost-effectively demands more reuse, recycling and composting. Burning valuable materials is economic madness. We have just started on a recycling revolution in the UK that is diverting waste from landfill more quickly, more safely and less expensively than these costly, wasteful and unloved incinerator projects.

CAI’s Julie Harrington adds:

UKWIN has been a very valuable source of information and a great source of support for the campaign group, providing access to well-researched data and evidence on a range of safer and greener alternatives to gasification/incineration; experts on incineration processes and their environmental impacts; and case studies from councils across the country that have already ruled out incineration as an option in their waste strategies.

We encourage anyone interested in the subject to attend the AGM and benefit from the vast amount of knowledge and experience that UKWIN has gathered on these controversial and potentially health-damaging technologies.

An introduction to myself. I taught environmental chemistry and toxicology at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY. I reached the rank of full professor and retired in May 2006. Since 1985 I have researched the dangers of incineration (I have co-authored six papers on dioxin) and have vigorously promoted an alternative strategy consisting of intensive recycling, composting, reuse, repair and re-design “if we can’t reuse it, recycle it or compost, industry shouldn’t be making it.” Today this approach is called the Zero Waste 2020 strategy. This effort has taken me to 49 states in the US, 7 provinces in Canada and 51 other countries. In all I have given over 3000 pro-bono presentations, largely to community groups but occasionally some officials deign to listen. On January 12, 2010 I had the honor of giving a presentation “Zero Waste for Sustainability” to the Division for the Sustainable Development at the United Nations.

Sustainability

I will begin here: after ending war, sustainability is the most crucial challenge our civilization has faced since the beginning of the industrial revolution. On a finite planet we cannot run a throwaway society indefinitely. We have to ape nature and recycle everything we possibly can. We would need four planets if everyone in the world consumed like Americans. We would need two planets if everyone consumed like Europeans. Meanwhile, both India and China, with their massive populations, are hell-bent on copying our “over-consuming” lifestyle. It was India’s Mahatma Gandhi who many years ago said that “the world has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.” We in the North and the West need to set a better example. Something has to change and the best place to start is with waste. Everyone makes waste, and as such we are all part of living in a non-sustainable way. But if everyone took that first vital step of keeping their discarded materials separate then they could join the movement which would move the world in a sustainable direction.

Incineration is not sustainable

Every time a community builds a trash incineration it sets back the real solutions by 25 years – the time it takes to pay back the massive investment involved. Every time you burn something you have to go back to the beginning of the linear society (extraction- manufacture-consumption-waste). After 25 years you are no closer to sustainability. All you are left with is a pile of ash of approximately one quarter of the mass of the trash that was burned. Promoters claim that incineration produces energy and fights global warming. This is utter nonsense. Three – four times more energy is saved by recycling the same materials as burned. One European company estimates that a combination of recycling and composting reduces global warming gases some 46 times more than incineration generating electricity (AEA, 2001).

The social costs of incineration are staggering especially in developing countries. The huge amount of money spent on incineration goes into complicated machinery (over half the capital cost is needed for air pollution control) and most of it leaves the country in the pockets of the multinational companies that build these monsters. With the alternatives most of the money goes into creating local jobs and local businesses, thereby staying in the community and the country. In Brescia, Italy, they spent about $400,000,000 building an incinerator and have created just 80 full-time jobs. While Nova Scotia, a province of Canada, after rejecting an incinerator, has created over 3000 jobs in the handling of the discarded resources and in the industries using these secondary materials.

So incineration is neither sound for the planet nor for the local or national economies. However, because this matter is largely in the hands of engineers and engineering consultants the only issue that has dominated their discussion is “Is it safe?”

Is incineration safe?

This is an issue I have followed for 25 years. The issue that peaked my interest was the incredible fact that simply by burning household trash we make the most toxic substances that we have ever been able to make in a chemical laboratory: polyhalogenated dibenzo para dioxins and furans (PCDDs, PCDFs, PBDDs, PBDFs etc) called “dioxins” for short. There are literally thousands of these substances. There is no question that over 25 years the industry has got better at capturing these pollutants but we are still hostage as to how well the plants are designed and operated, monitored and the regulations enforced. In addition to this, incineration releases many toxic metals from otherwise fairly stable matrices. At worst these metals (lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium etc) go into the air, at best they are captured in the fly ash in the air pollution control devices (APC). But it is a truism to state that the better the APC the more toxic the ash becomes. Where is this ash going to go? In Germany and Switzerland the fly ash is put into nylon bags and deposited in salt mines. In Japan a number of the incinerators vitrify the ash, making it into a glass-like material, but that takes a huge amount of energy away from the system. Do you know where the ash is going in this proposal?

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.

The formidable issue of nanoparticles

There is nothing new about nanoparticles, which are particle of less than one micron in diameter. They are produced in any high temperature combustion which includes vehicles, coal-fired power stations, industrial boilers etc. What is new is nanotechnology where these particles, which have very unusual properties, are being used in many commercial products from shaving cream to tennis rackets. This has raised the question of whether they have any negative health effects. That question has given rise to a new discipline called nanotoxicology. It turns out that these particles have exquisite biological properties which are very worrying. They are so tiny that they can cross the lung membrane and enter the bloodstream. Once there they can enter every tissue in the body including the brain. The problem with incineration is twofold: a) because every object in commerce is likely to end up in an incinerator any toxic element used in these products is likely to end up in the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles from incinerators are the most dangerous of any common source. b) There are NO regulations in the world for the monitoring nanoparticles from incinerators. In most countries the particles regulated are 10 microns and above.In some countries they regulate particles at 2.5 microns. But neither standard comes closer to monitoring nanoparticles. We are flying blind on this crucial issue.

I have attached a very important paper on this issue from Dr. Vyvyan Howard from Northern Ireland. I know Vyvyan very well and he is one of the brightest people I have ever met. He co-authored a book on nanoparticles in 1999. The attached paper was delivered in 2009 in a hearing on an incinerator proposed for Ireland. It is the most up to date review of the issue of nanoparticles and incineration available. Before any new incinerator is built in India, or anywhere else for that matter, government officials (or the public) should force the project director to produce a scientific response to the key questions posed in this paper. If they cannot do so, then clearly building such a plant is taking a reckless gamble with the public’s health. Moreover, if we return to the opening of this statement, such a gamble cannot be justified on either economic or environmental grounds, both local and global.

The alternatives are not pie-in-the-sky

Many communities in California, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and the UK have embarked on the zero waste strategy (not all call it that) and have achieved some with very rapid and impressive results. San Francisco (population 850,000) has reached 72% diversion from waste disposal. Their goal for 2010 is 75% diversion and their goal for 2020 is Zero Waste. Many other communities in California have also reached over 70% diversion. In Italy over 200 communities have done so. Novarra near Turin (pop. 100,000) reached 70% in just 18 months. Salerno, went from 18% to 82 % in one year. Villafranco d’Asti (population 35,000) has reached 85% diversion and the small town of Ursibil in Spain has reached 86%.

Zero Waste in India

India is uniquely placed to achieve even greater diversion rates. You have hundreds of thousands of “rag pickers” scavenging every last piece of glass and bottle top from your landfills. Instead of frittering away millions (maybe billions) of dollars building giant incinerators put that money into formalizing this sector: give them buildings, good working conditions, protective clothing, showers etc, and educate their kids. Form them into cooperatives so that they can continue to share in the profits of the recovered material (if this is not made clear they will probably fight such a change). What these people are doing is the most difficult task of all: looking after the residuals. More than anything else these people need our respect. Householders can look after the recyclables, compostables and reusables.

For more about the nuts and bolts about the zero waste approach see my webpage at www.AmericanHealthStudies.org. There you will find a series of videotapes I have shot on Zero Waste around the world and also an essay entitled Zero Waste for Sustainability.

Remember we have only got one planet and we must start behaving as if that was the case. I will also forward the power point presentation I gave at the UN on Jan 12, 2010 if any one is interested.

Paul Connett, PhD
Executive Director,
American Environmental Health Studies Project (AEHSP)

You can read the Secretary of State’s decision letter and the Planning Inspector’s lengthy report, both of which are archived on the excellent web-site of the Stop the Incinerator Community Group.

The decision leaves several issues unresolved, and as the following campaign update explains:

The major waste plant including a 360,000 tpa incinerator has been granted planning permission by the Government, which endorsed the Inspectors Report, following the October 2009 Inquiry.

The Inspector and the Government admitted that the waste plant would have negative impacts on the countryside and local communities but that the need for the plant outweighed these impacts.

There are 63 conditions attached to the consent. The most important of these requires the plant to have no more than one chimney stack and for that stack to be no more than 35m above current ground levels. However, the Inspector and the Secretary of State were unable to decide on the conflicting evidence they received about the stack height – the developers deciding to change from a 35m to a 40m stack during the Inquiry, the advice of the Environment Agency which strongly suggested that 35m would be well short of that required and the objectors who asked for clarity as the stack height was a key issue due to the location in open countryside.
This uncertainty could well result in further applications if the Environmental Permit requires a higher stack. The EA has stated that stack heights about double that proposed are more typical for a plant of this size.

The plant is unlikely to be operational for many years, if it is built at all. It will take up to 2 years to excavate the gravel and sand to create a lower ground level and void for the plant and another 2 years to build it. There is also uncertainty over whether the plant would handle the Essex County Council municipal waste contract which is currently out to tender. It could be that the plant operates entirely as a commercial and industrial waste plant – a far cry from the “recycling and composting facility for north Essex” based on municipal waste that the developers first consulted on.

The local community, parish councils and Braintree District Council put up a strong fight against the plans and the original planning application attracted over 800 objections and just one letter of support. There is widespread concern about the way in which Essex County Council has repeatedly backed a major waste plant on the site (the current one is the latest in a series of revisions) and has ignored community views when it has a known commercial interest in the plant being built and used the plant to model its PFI bid. The County Council also spent up to £90,000 of public money at the Inquiry urging consent to be given, against the overwhelming views of local communities.

The Stop the Incinerator campaign has already decided to continue the fight against any incinerator being built on the site and will support campaigns against any other incinerator proposal in Essex.

The story was covered on BBC East on 6th March when campaign co-ordinator Cllr. James Abbott noted that this huge plant (the total site is over 60 acres in size) was being built in a district where total waste is falling and where recycling is now above 50%. The plant would generate over 400 HGV movements a day and import well over 95% of its feedstock from outside the district, including from London and the Home Counties. It has a planned total throughout (in and out) of 1.3 mtpa and would include a paper pulping plant, MBT unit, AD tanks and the incinerator. It would have a high gearing of waste disposal with about half of the imported material (by weight) being incinerated or landfilled.

Following what they refer to as “a five-month inquiry”, the seemingly respectable sounding “Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group” claims we need 500 waste management plants, observing that achieving planning permission “remains an acute challenge for the waste sector”.

The Group proposes re-jigging ‘public consultation’ to turn planning new waste plants into what they describe as “a win-win proposition”. They look to Europe, “where waste management has become associated with delivering social benefits”.

Their report proposes incentives, with communities offered discounts on their energy bills or allowed to own waste plants to win their ‘buy-in’. It urges the waste industry to consider the model of community-owned
wind farms, which share the profits from electricity sold to the national grid.

Community funds tied to waste contracts and operated through a committee are viewed as more “flexible” than planning gains made through section 106 agreements or the community infrastructure levy.

The new report, available on-line, is sponsored by none other than Suez Environment and SITA.

It appears the Group also propose the use of regulatory loopholes to enable local authorities to get into the waste to energy business – by throwing them some sweeteners as their version of “community involvement”, presumably in the hope that local authorities will then willingly permit the plants.

Interestingly, given the higher carbon emissions of waste incinerators compared to other management options, a word-search of the report fails to find any mention of either “carbon” or “greenhouse”!

With cross-Party co-chairs (see below) justifying the grand-sounding name, the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group turns out to be just another lobby group run by the waste industry including the big corporates. For more, visit http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/apsrg/members.

Cross-Party co-chairs of the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group
Dan Rogerson Liberal Democrat
Angela Watkinson – Conservative
Barry Sheerman and Alan Whitehead – Labour
Lord Taylor of Holbeach – Conservative peer
Lord Lewis of Newnham and Veolia Trust

Following the emergence of an anti-incineration campaign for Guernsey (supported by UKWIN), and recent presentations to deputies, key business leaders and the public by Alan Watson, Director of Public Interest Consultants (PIC), and by Dr Paul Connett, Professor of Environmental Chemistry at St Lawrence University, Guernsey has decided against building an incinerator at Longue Hougue.

Images from protest against Suez / SITA Guernsey Energy from Waste incinerator

The Guernsey campaigners earned the praise of the experts, with Dr Connett saying:

A classic case of great teamwork and great timing. The local group was very well organized with a number of very well informed (and lovely) people. My few days there were a delight – and the outcome was most exciting.

and with Alan Watson adding:

This was a great campaign and the island is now set for a zero waste strategy.

The island’s media are reporting that:

Guernsey’s States have voted overwhelmingly to scrap plans for a multi-million pound waste-to-energy plant at Longue Hougue. The decision follows a much closer earlier vote which amended a requete from Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher. That gave deputies the opportunity to throw out the Suez proposals… Members of the Environment Department did not take part in the votes because of a potential conflict of interest.

The short article also notes that the States have also decided to look into exporting Guernsey’s rubbish to Jersey.

And according to The Guernsey Press Jersey has agreed to accept Guernsey’s waste for a decade to come.

Senator Alan Maclean, minister for Economic Development, and reiterates a letter sent to Public Services in 2009 stating that Jersey could take 30,000 tonnes of Guernsey’s waste for 10 years.

A 2-minute interview with two local anti-incineration campaigners is available from http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_guernseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=485422 and a longer article about Guernsey’s abandonment of incinerator plans has been produced by the BBC.

We would like to thank you for your effective assistance in this matter and for bringing it up with us in time, which contributed to preventing a possible infringement of the EC rules in the UK.

So ends a letter sent to Friends of the Earth’s Rights and Justice Centre, who represented anti-incineration campaigners from Hull and East Riding (including HOTI and East Yorkshire Eye) in a dispute over funding for a proposed Saltend incinerator. The letter was issued by the Head of the European Commission Directorate General Internal Market and Services Public Procurement Policy Unit based in Brussels, following an investigation of a complaint made against Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

The complaint, made in March 2009, focussed on the award of a waste disposal services contract to the Spanish-owned Waste Recycling Group (WRG). Campaigners alleged that Hull and East Riding Councils were about to commit an infringement of the EC public procurement rules, as they intended to award a waste disposal services contract to WRG, without allowing other firms to submit a bid.

In 1999 the Councils signed a 25-year waste disposal services contract with WRG. The Councils subsequently announced their intention to extend this contract by a further 5 years, at an the estimated cost of about £72 million. This would have entailed modifying some of the existing contract’s conditions, without carrying out a prior call to competition and a tendering process in accordance with European Commission (EC) rules.

The planned contract amendments included an increase in the capacity of WRG’s proposed incinerator as well as changes to the payment mechanism. Campaigners successfully argued that this would constitute “a material amendment of the essential conditions” and therefore could not be considered a lawful extension to the existing contract.

According to the European Commission:

In such a case, the £72 million worth contract would constitute an autonomous and new public contract, which should therefore have been tendered out on the basis of an open, transparent tendering process in accordance with the EC rules.

As a result of the complaint:

…the UK authorities were invited not to proceed with the extension of the existing contract or with any other relevant act, before the Commission services’ conclusion regarding [their investigation into] compliance with the Community law of the issues under review.

During a telephone conference in October 2009 between the EC and UK officials, the Commission expressed their doubts and concerns that the proposed contract amendments would constitute an unlawful contract modification, as interpreted by the European Court of Justice, and would therefore constitute an infringement of public procurement rules.

Following that discussion, Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire County Council gave the Commission an unequivocal commitment “that the Councils were no longer contemplating the possibility of extending or amending the existing contract with the WRG” and that “…the Councils now intend to continue with the contract in question as it stands, without introducing an extension or modification to its terms”.

And to think, they might have gotten away with it if not for those pesky anti-incineration campaigners working with the help of Friends of the Earth’s Rights and Justice Centre!

You can help support Hull campaigners in the next round of their legal battle to stop an incinerator from being built in Saltend by investing in HOTI bonds – see Get ‘em while they’re HOTI

Sunday 21st February
Green Drinks
from 11am onwards at Julie’s Cafe, Glanvilles Mill, Ivybridge
A chance to meet informally to get to know other green minded people in the Ivybridge and surrounding area. All are welcome (bring your children for a milkshake and cookie).

Saturday 27th February
‘Call to Action’
at The Watermark in Ivybridge,
from 1.30 pm to 4.30 pm (talks from 2 pm to 4pm with refreshments in the middle).
Sponsored by the Co-op for Fairtrade Fortnight.
A showcase of social and environmental organisations that are active in the Ivybridge area. This will be a family event open to people of all ages and there will be a crèche and play area provided for the very young.
Entrance is free, although tickets are available to ensure entry, from The Watermark information Centre, St Luke’s Charity Shop, or via email from frankie@ecoivy.org.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on the EcoIvy Community Diary for the latest events.

The application, written by consultants SLR on behalf of Viridor, explains:

Viridor propose to construct and operate a RRC facility comprising an EfW facility and a nonhazardous Landfill. The EfW facility is designed to accept up to 275,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of residual municipal solid waste (rMSW), commercial and industrial (C&I) wastes. Reception and treatment of all wastes will take place within the EfW building. The nonhazardous landfill will accept approximately 33,000tpa (to a maximum of 60,000tpa) of wastes not suitable for the EfW facility. In addition, the landfill would accept all wastes destined for the EfW in the instance that both lines are closed for maintenance.

Regarding the destination of the fly ash, the application says:

…it is likely that the fly ash from New England will be disposed of at a licensed facility in Gloucestershire.

Local campaign group EcoIvy points out that:
…Viridor plans to build a ‘Resource Recovery Centre’ at New England Quarry, less than two miles from the beautiful town of Ivybridge which is situated on the edge of Dartmoor National Park in South Hams Devon.

The residents of Ivybridge are insisting that they be fully consulted regarding any matter that may adversely affect their environment or their economy.

This includes the quality of the air that we breathe, the amount of traffic on our roads and the price of our houses. We love Ivybridge and will do what we can to ensure that Ivybridge continues to be a beautiful, safe and desirable place to live both now and in the future.

The campaign has led to a new found community spirit in the town and this site is now growing into a hub of communication for Ivybridge residents for the promotion of all positive social and environmental activities and good causes in the area.

Visit their website at: http://www.ecoivy.org/

Viridor’s Environmental Permit application is available from: http://www.viridor-consultation.co.uk/index.php?contentId=197.

As part of a new 2010 challenge volunteers across Scotland are pledging to ’slim their bins’ and reduce their home waste by at least 25%.

The ‘Home Waste Challenge 2010′, part of Friends of the Earth Scotland’s (FoES) national waste prevention campaign, has already attracted over 30 households to participate. Each one is monitoring their rubbish bin over a week and taking easy steps to help them use less of the world’s resources.

Rosiaina Browning, FoES’ Waste Prevention Co-ordinator, said:

Lent is the ideal time for people to start the Home Waste Challenge. Giving up waste is an original idea to try and is something fun and creative the whole family can take part in. Just by simply reducing food waste the average household can save up to £430 per year whilst helping protect our environment against climate change.

Friends of the Earth Office staff are also practising what they preach and have all started the “Home Waste Challenge” in their own households by taking simple actions such as stopping junk mail and using a compost bin.

The Home Waste Challenge will continue throughout 2010 with more and more Scottish households signing up to participate. People are invited to take part at www.reducewaste.org.uk.

CREW (Communities Reducing Excess Waste) is Friends of the Earth Scotland’s waste prevention project which aims to reduce waste at source. It is available for small businesses, households and communities across Scotland.

From a local authority perspective, waste prevention means reducing the amount of waste that needs to be collected and treated by Surrey’s authorities. This includes:
• Waste materials not being produced at all
• Materials being dealt with by residents themselves
• Materials formally disposed of being reused

Five priority projects for residents have been identified targeting potential tonnage reduction and ability to influence behaviours:
1. Food waste reduction, Love Food Hate Waste campaign
2. Green waste reduction via home composting
3. Reuse of bulky items such as furniture and white goods
4. Reusable nappies
5. Junk mail reduction

AD for Food waste
According to the report (available from the Surrey County Council website), there are over 100,000 tonnes of food in Surrey’s household waste. “The preferred method of dealing with food waste is to avoid its purchase, or to dispose of at home using devices such as green johannas. However there will be a significant volume of food waste in any event.”

The World Class Waste Solutions (WCWS) report recommends segregated food waste collection followed by treatment using Anaerobic Digestion Technology.

Evidence has shown that segregated food waste collections improve performance in three ways:
• Reduce the volume of waste by exposing the level of food wasted
• Divert food from harmful landfill to recycling solutions
• Increase recycling of other products by reducing contamination and enabling complementary systems to be developed

Anaerobic Digestion (AD) is the most appropriate technology for food waste. AD is an organic technology which breaks down food waste in the absence of air to produce two by-products
• A compost material which can be used on agricultural land
• A biogas which can be used to generate electricity or to power vehicles

A 40,000 tonne AD facility is recommended, to be based at an Eco Park. The capital cost and revenue costs of AD have been built into the projected cost of the waste contract. A 40,000 tonne AD facility will save over 17,000 tonnes of carbon each year compared to landfill – this is the equivalent of taking over seven thousand cars off the road.

Minutes of the 2nd February 2010 Surrey County Council Cabinet meeting reflect the move away from mass burn, and towards reducing waste arising and increasing recycling and composting to 70%.

WORLD CLASS WASTE SOLUTIONS (Item 12)
The Cabinet Member for Environment set out the key elements of the Waste Strategy. She said that it was crucial to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill and that the Council was aiming to increase re-cycling rates to 70%. This would be achieved by improving the re-cycling centres and encourage all Districts / Boroughs to provide food waste collections. She announced that the County Council was aiming for zero waste to landfill by 2013 [although this is based on an assumption that ash would be recycled...]

Surrey County Council resolved:
(1) That the World Class Waste Solutions described in Annexes 1 – 3 to the submitted report be adopted as the Waste Disposal Authority Action Plan.
(2) That approval of those amendments to the Waste Disposal Project Agreement within the current contractual context necessary to deliver new services and infrastructure by 2013 be delegated to Strategic
Director for Environment and Infrastructure, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Environment, Head of Legal and Democratic Services and Head of Finance.
(3) That authority to work with the Surrey Waste Partnership to develop a new Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy for Surrey by 30 June 2010, be delegated to Cabinet Member for Environment

Reasons for decisions:
The recommendations will enable delivery of World Class Waste Solutions for Surrey by 2013 in a manner, which meets legal requirements, represents value for money and is the lowest cost option to the County Council.

Further information released by Surrey County Council (SCC) records how:

In 1999 the Council entered into a long term integrated waste management contract with SITA UK, to manage waste services and deliver residual waste treatment using Energy from Waste technology.

SCC acknowledges that:

A number of setbacks have occurred around the planning process. This culminated in a High Court decision in March 2009 to quash the planning approval for an EFW facility at Capel. There have also been increasingly difficult legal and financial issues relating to the delivery of EFW facilities within the remaining period of the existing Waste Disposal Project Agreement, which expires in 2024.

and that:

There has been a reduction in household waste nationally (5% in last year) but particularly in Surrey (10% in last year). There have been significant increases in recycling rates – up 10% in last year with continuing increases projected. New technologies have emerged which offer the prospect of lower cost
and smaller scale operation.

In June 2009 the Leader of the Council stated:

As a result of the improvements to date, we have an opportunity to remove or reduce our reliance on EFW (energy from waste) Plants in Surrey. I have asked officers to look at our options as a matter of priority as I want Surrey to set the standards of excellence in this area and I feel confident that this is possible. It is an area of our work in which I think we should be aiming to be world class.