Row Erupts Over City’s Waste Plans
Newcastle’s community waste group, BAN Waste, has reacted with anger and dismay to proposals by Newcastle Council that embrace building a new waste incinerator in the city. The revelation emerged after the group was given 4 weeks consultation period to respond to officer’s proposals for dealing with the city’s waste over the next 20 years.
Documents released to BAN Waste show that officers had identified gasification (a form of incineration that needs a pre-treated fuel) as the preferred option for the city after officers and councillors visited a number of waste treatment plants in March and April last year.
A report entitled Community Energy Feasibility Study (Final Report, June 2008) produced by Ove Arup for a City energy network in Newcastle refers to how: “The Newcastle Network would also provide a means for utilising heat generated by a waste incineration plant of the type currently under consideration by the council.” The report identifies a likely site as being between Scotswood and Cruddas Park.
A further, secret report [Draft Final, Benwell Site Suitability – Outline Survey Overview of Approach] was also commissioned by officers to investigate the feasibility of a specific site on Scotswood Road. This was cancelled amid fears in the autumn that, following the credit crunch, banks might not want to support an unknown and therefore risky technology with an estimated £18m cost to build a plant.
Phil Capon, a founder member of BAN Waste, said:
There appears to be an underlying pattern to the way the council deals with how it gets rid of waste. In the past this has involved making plans to look at burning it without talking to residents or their councillors.
Originally the plans to double the size of Byker Incinerator were scuppered in 1999 after a resident overheard an officer talking about the city’s proposals. BAN Waste had hoped that the policy the council adopted in 2003 to stop incineration in Newcastle and aim for Zero Waste would mean just that. But in 2004 an application to the Government for money to build a pilot gasification plant in Byker on the site of the closed incinerator was only rejected after BAN Waste informed Byker councillors and their outrage on not being consulted prevented this going further.
According to BAN Waste:
Gasification plants are a new technology for dealing with general waste and have yet to be tested in the UK. In 2007 there were 10 plants across Europe and their track record is patchy. Two were closed down following explosions and major pollution incidents in 1999 and 2000 and the owner of 6 of the others went bankrupt in 2003.
Phil Capon of BAN Waste added:
We were shocked to find out that the gasification plant that officers and councillors visited was run by Ener-G the parent company of Contract Heat and Power (CHP) who used to operate Byker Incinerator. Especially as this company was responsible for producing the ‘massively contaminated’ ash that was spread on allotment footpaths throughout the city. It would be outrageous if councillors even thought about contracting the same company to run another plant in Newcastle after the terrible damage caused by the Byker ash fiasco.
Dr Alice Massey, one of the BAN Waste researchers, commented:
Our research has revealed that the “independent” consultant who has been advising the Council on their waste strategy is, in fact, an ex Head of the Energy from Waste Association. He should have declared this position to councillors and officers. We are concerned that his impartiality could not be relied upon and he could have had the opportunity to influence councillors and officers towards a solution that involves burning waste. None of the evidence we have seen shows he has made councillors aware of the problems associated with some of the European Gasification plants.
BAN Waste are seriously worried that councillors are on the verge of repeating the same mistake in the west end of the city that they made in the east end when they approved the Byker Incinerator.
The group’s report “Aiming for Zero Waste” [available to download as a .pdf file] calls on the council to reject gasification as an option, to reaffirm its own existing policy of no incineration in the City and to consider how to reduce the amount of waste before it ties itself into a long and expensive solution to stopping waste going to landfill.
Dr Alice Massey added:
The current proposals have no plans to implement the adopted waste reduction targets and jump straight to how to recover energy. There are many ways they can recycle and compost so much more of Newcastle’s waste that have not been looked at.
The group’s alternative proposals will be considered by the council’s Environment Scrutiny Panel on Monday before going to the Executive for a final decision on Tuesday.