Cardiff Friends of the Earth has several concerns about Viridor's applications for an incinerator in Cardiff.
Over-sized – 2.5 times the amount of residual waste Cardiff produces
In 2007/2008, the total amount of residual waste from Cardiff was 133,000 tonnes, the total from five local authorities in the region is still less than 330,000 tonnes. With rates of recycling set to increase this leaves the question of where the shortfall would come from. Viridor imply that the household waste could be topped up using business waste but incinerators can't cope with too high a proportion of business waste. This means the extra waste would either have to be diverted from recycling or brought from further away.
Transport – 260 extra lorries per day on Cardiff's roads
In order to meet the demands of the incinerator, over 1,000 tonnes of waste per day would have to be transported to the site - this will result in 260 more lorries per day having to be accommodated on Cardiff's roads. This amount of traffic - a 3 percent increase - would have a significant impact on congestion and result in a corresponding increase in pollution from the vehicles.
Toxic waste – 120,000 tonnes of waste ash per year
Every year the incineration process would produce about 17,500 tonnes of toxic fly ash which would have to be transported to a hazardous waste site in England; and around 100,000 tonnes of bottom ash which contains leachable metals.
Although theoretically the bottom ash can be recycled as secondary aggregate for use in the building trade, only half the current production of bottom ash is bought, meaning the rest would need to be landfilled. Less bottom ash will be used in future because the Highways Agency has banned its use in road building after it cased an explosion which injured two workmen.
Emissions – NOx, ultrafine particles, dioxins
Incineration releases:
- high levels of climate-changing carbon dioxide
- nitrogen oxides and
- dangerous ultrafine particles which can cause lung cancer.
In addition, emissions are not limited during start-up and close-down when high levels of cancer-causing dioxins are emitted.
Alternatives
Incinerators are not an efficient way of recovering energy from waste because they only have about 20 percent electrical efficiency. Other residual waste treatments, such as anaerobic digestion, generate energy more efficiently. The greatest energy efficiency of all would be achieved by maximising recycling.
The long-term waste contracts associated with incinerators are very inflexible. This is because of:
- their large size
- huge cost to build and
- the need to always run them at full capacity
Modular and flexible alternatives are available which can adapt to changing volumes and composition of waste as recycling improves and increases. These include:
- Mechanical and Biological Treatment (MBT)
- Anarobic Digestion
- Autoclaving
- Gasification
- Pyrolysis.
For more information on incineration, go to the UK Without Incineration website.