Incineration is more environmentally friendly than landfilling

by Paul - Indymedia Thu Jun 13, 2002 13:10 paul at indymedia dot ie

A few of us at Indymedia are putting together a feature article on incineration and the various campaigns around the country. Anyone involved or interested in contributing please use the contact form (link below) to get in touch. Terry - good piece - please contact so we can display this more prominently.

by Terry Thu Jun 13, 2002 12:05

I think the title on the last posting was maybe a bit incorrect,
otherwise I agree with everything stated and I think most other people
would too.

I wish to add, that the debate in this country has been intentionally
polarized to be 'Incinerators vs Landfill', which of course is totally
misleading. As stated above and elsewhere, recycling can achieve vast
amounts and deal with both the incinerator and landfill options as non
runners.

However, there is definitely some kind of political and business agenda
to push incinerators on the people of this country. For starters the vast
majority oppose incinerators. They spew poisons, contaiminate our land and
air, reform the waste into toxic ash and spread it further, potentially
leading to the 'leaching' problems of landfills occurring along all roads
that use it as roadfill. It is well known from experience in other countries
that incinerators impede recycling and keeps the rates low, mainly because
much of the recycleable material is burnt. Contray to our 'wise' leaders, most
people are willing to recycle and would do more so, if even modest efforts were
made to provide more recycling facilities/services.

However somehow the reality that is developing is that there are over 6 incinerators
planned for Ireland. A few have already got through the planning stage, presumably
by narrowing the scope in which planning authorities can examine the proposals,
by side tracking the environmental concerns to the EPA. The EPA has lost credability
after the Askeaton affair in Limerick (over the Aluminimun poisoning of cattle and the
white-wash of a investigation that blamed it on bad farming practices)

In the past year the un-democractic move by the government to take away the
right of County Councils to decide on waste matters including incinerators has
been transferred to central government where surely the previous planning
corruption scandals must raise a red flag.

On top of this, the consultants used by the government for 'advising' on Waste,
for example in Galway stated that it would take 14 years to achieve a
recycling rate of 45%, which they saw as the highest achieveable rate that we
could achieve and thus recycling could never solve our waste problem and thus we
need incineration

But in a dramatic demostration of how wrong and plainly politically inspired
advise this is, last year in the space of just 8 months, Galway achieved a rate
of 56%, beating their own target of 50% which they gave themselves 12 years to reach.
So there you have it -56% in 8 months!

However mysteriously the capital grants that were partially backing this effort
were withdrawn and this was reflected in the headline in the Irish Times on 1st May 2002,
as "Dempsey denies 'sabotage' of Galway recycling scheme"! If they were really for
protecting the environment, they would have jumped at this success.

Funny enough though, of the 600 million Euro set aside by the government for dealing
with waste, 500 million Euro is to be used for building incinerators.

You see the real issue is that by privatising refuse collections and incinerating
the waste, there are two opportunities or should I say 'markets' to make money in.
It doesn't matter whether it is environmentally sound or not. It matters little
to the people who will be involved. The alternative of encouraging producers to reduce
excessive packaging, would come up against real pressure if anything other than lip
service was paid to this. On the recycling front, it appears councils and the government
would have to get up off their bums and actually do something, like providing and
servicing new and improved facilties. This is seen as a cost, and is of vital importance
in that it goes against the campaign to privatise refuse collection (which has been
inspired from the EU, via the World Trade GATS agreement, which is an unaccountable
corporate agenda to create new markets in all sorts of sectors, from waste to water
to health and education), because this would make it unattractive to private enterprise.
The last thing a private waste company wants, is for the volume of waste produced
by the customers to become less. Hence we see the core conflict at the heart of this
matter, much as any profit run business selling energy has to customers in terms of
the global warming issue. How can they encourage people to use less energy by
improvements in efficiency when this directly negatively affects the bottom line, but
of course would be the right thing to do enviriomentally.

If one approaches this subject in the manner of (an honest) investigator/scientist,
then what you do is look at the real raw data, not the rhetoric and base your
explanation/theory around explaining the facts in the real world and even predict
future outcomes. That's how science works, when it is left to it's own devices
untouched by corruption or vested interest, such as a scientist working for say the
EPA might be, because they have to keep their job, and make sure they don't rock
the boat with unfavourable findings or a doctor doing a clinical trial on a new trail
but who happens to have an option for shares in the drug company, thus guaranteeing
he/she would deal well, if the drug turns out to be a 'success'.
But I would appeal to all readers to take this approach and judge for yourselves
and most important keep informed and stay informed.

It is time for everyone to get involved and start recycling more and demand more
facilites. For example the government constantly tells us that they can't recycle
plastics. Well those Coke and 7Up PET bottles that are so bulkly in all our bins
CAN BE RECYCLED. In fact there is a US company up on the Cavan/Meath border called
Wellman International that are the biggest recyclers of PET plastic in all of Europe
from where they import the plastic waste. I have heard that they have asked the
government and councils to send their PET plastic waste up to them, but so far the
response has been silence. Why? Because the powers-that-be want to play the lie that
they are for recycling, while at the same time making no effort to properly encourage
it, and in this particular instance going out of their way to do nothing. Then they
can come in with their biased consultants (see above) and using their new authoritarian
powers (see above), impose incinerators on us.

If you really want to stop these incinerators turning Ireland from the country in
Europe with the lowest background rates of Dioxin into, I will bet one of the highest,
then you must realize that this issue is more than just about the techincalities, but
is also politically biased in favour of incineration, REGARDLESS of what people think.

Therefore everyone must play their part and don't leave it up to others and various
self appointed 'wise' leaders. Start campaigning yourself and organise.

Note: The incinerator planned for Dublin in Ringsend is proposed to handle 500,000
tonnes of waste per year. This is easily the bulk of the domesctic waste for the city
and clearly indicates that nowhere does recycling feature.
(I cannot currently find a website for the Dublin campaign against the Incinerator)
If anyone has info on this campaign, please post it here.

Some relevant links are:

www.StopTheBinTax.com

www.noincineration.com No Incinerator
www.thebattlefortheboyne.com Battle for the Boyne - No Incinerater Campaign
www.noincinerationsouthtipp.com South Tipperary Anti Incineration Campaign

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~galsafenv/gse/ Galway for a Safe Environment
http://gofree.indigo.ie/~ljhannon/gswasub.htm Galway Safe Waste Alliance
www.cobhonline.com/case/index.asp Cork Alliance for A Safe Environment

www.zerowaste.co.nz Zero Waste Policy
www.home.zonnet.nl/ireland22/garbage.htm Ireland's Rubbish Crisis

www.rowatworks.com/Science/IncineratorToxic/ Incinerator Toxic Emissions
www.communities-against-toxics.org.uk/ Communities Against Toxics

www.GATSwatch.org/

by Mark - Socialist Party Thu Jun 13, 2002 10:40

The point is that neither are nescessary. Non-recyclable materials are not needed. Investment of public funds in recycling would eliminate the need for either form of dumping. It is a fact that 30% of waste incinerated remains behind as ash that still needs to be dumped. In the case of toxic materials, thats a lot of ash.