Put the heat from waste to better use

9:21am Wednesday 3rd October 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter

AMEY-CESPA will tell you that the proposed incinerator for Allerton could heat 40,000 homes, but it won’t because our ‘realistic option’ is to build it in the middle of nowhere. Thousands of polluting lorries will take the waste to the site.

In the UK, we worry about dioxin emissions and alleged threats to recycling. Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, France and Italy all incinerate more waste than we do and also recycle more than we do.

Eurostat figures for 2008 show that while Sweden incinerated four times more waste per capita than we did in the UK, and did so in or close to their cities in order to make use of the waste heat, their urban exposure to particulates was no higher than in the UK.

The combined dioxin emission release from Sweden’s 31 energy-from-waste plants in 2007 was one gram. You would get the same amount of dioxin released if you burned around 380 kg of PVC, according to Greenpeace.

I thought we were in the middle of an economic crisis. If the plant were built nearer a city, properly regulated to control emissions, it could be heating tens of thousands of homes instead of pouring heat into the skies.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.

Comments(8)

PKH says...
10:17am Wed 3 Oct 12

But no one would want it built near them, the amount of planning objections, legal revues etc.there would be if built near a town or city, would make building it there very difficult.

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ColdAsChristmas says...
11:30am Wed 3 Oct 12

PKH is correct, away from residential and commercial property and hidden with trees is the only way.
Remember, this will save a fortune in land fill charges by the EU that will sooth the economic argument.
Mr V talks about polluting lorries, OK well what about the tankers full of Ethanol between distilleries and refineries? We don't need Ethanol contaminated fuel but we do need to be rid of our refuse.

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FieryJack says...
12:30pm Wed 3 Oct 12

Actually it won't 'save a fortune in landfill charges'. The last calculations I saw suggested it would cost more than landfilling. Meanwhile, EU rules coming in the next few years will make it illegal to incinerate recyclable material, which will blow the finances sky high. Plus the rocketing price of oil has made the calculations on waste transport completely out of date. There are incinerators in cities - usually in poor areas, where the residents are easily steamrollered, and studies exist of the increases in cancer levels around them. Cause and effect is difficult to prove of course - as was the case with the tobacco industry and cancer for decades. But this project was conceived when the situation was very different - when waste was going up, not coming down as it is now, and when there were less viable alternative technologies. Recycling is the way: this project will incinerate 85% of what goes in there. It has to be abandoned.

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pedalling paul says...
3:04pm Wed 3 Oct 12

Better by far to recycle locally, then collect & transport the inert reside by rail or barge to landfill sites which can then be reclaimed.
It happens already...London's waste is removed by river. Edinburgh, Bristol and Manchester operate so-called binliner trains.
Could the waste from York and neighbouring towns be taken via the Wensleydale and Weardale railways for disposal at former quarries?

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Magicman! says...
12:47am Thu 4 Oct 12

PKH wrote:
But no one would want it built near them, the amount of planning objections, legal revues etc.there would be if built near a town or city, would make building it there very difficult.
nail firmly hit on the head.

Only Huddersfield and Sheffield are places I know of that have incinerators right in the middle of the city/township.


And as regards the EU law that will make it illegal to burn recyclables: (1) how would it be policed, (2) what a stupid law obviously made up by some beaurocrat meriting their own desk job, just like banning traditional light bulbs which break down to metal and glass recycling in favour of self-ballasted Fluorescent lamps which contain mercury, PCB's, and electrical components - all of which are hazardous materials and can only be disposed of by certified companies who are charged an arm and a leg for the certificates.

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FieryJack says...
6:58am Thu 4 Oct 12

Same way climate change emissions are/will be policed Magicman, with penalties for those concerned. It's a very sensible law that will probably be in place by 2020 - there to protect the planet we live in from those who put its future at risk to make a fast buck.

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greenmonkey says...
5:24pm Thu 4 Oct 12

There's a plan for an anaerobic digestor for the old Selby mine, which will be able to process food and farm waste, provide waste heat to run a market gardening operation and generate electricity by burning methane. Much cheaper than an incinerator, if it gets the go ahead it will cut the waste to landfill/ incineration. Increases in oil prices in the next few years will mean plastic food packaging volumes reducing - again undermining the calorific value of the rubbish! Costings for the business case were for current prices

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Ichabod76 says...
5:23pm Fri 5 Oct 12

greenmonkey wrote:
There's a plan for an anaerobic digestor for the old Selby mine, which will be able to process food and farm waste, provide waste heat to run a market gardening operation and generate electricity by burning methane. Much cheaper than an incinerator, if it gets the go ahead it will cut the waste to landfill/ incineration. Increases in oil prices in the next few years will mean plastic food packaging volumes reducing - again undermining the calorific value of the rubbish! Costings for the business case were for current prices
for every kilogram of methane that is burnt, 2.74 kg of carbon dioxide is produced !

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