Waste management firm Global Renewables has criticised the Audit Commission's waste disposal report for what it sees as a suggestion that waste incinerators are the main means by which local authorities can avoid rising landfill costs.

In a report yesterday (see letsrecycle.com story), the Commission claimed councils could not rely solely on recycling to meet landfill diversion targets for 2013, and urged them to press on with creating more diversion capacity. The Commission argued that other treatment processes, such as energy from waste, would create the biggest impact.

This was welcomed by some in the waste sector  with regional bosses at recycling and waste management company SITA UK praising the support for energy from waste as a means to avoid heavy fines. 

However, the report yesterday provoked anger from Australian-owned MBT specialist Global Renewables, which last week called for a limit on mass burn incineration (see letsrecycle.com story) .

And, others, such as the UK without Incineration network (UK WIN), have since claimed that, contrary to media reports, the study shows that incineration is not needed.

Objection

According to Global Renewables, the Audit Commission report urged government to back local authorities in overcoming public objection to energy and added that those which were currently going through planning have little chance of impacting on the landfill reduction targets set for 2013.

However, GR managing director David Singh, said that resource recovery technologies provided a much more environmentally friendly solution - and one which could be achieved more quickly.

He said: "It's a common misconception that EfW facilities are a great way to solve the problem of waste and rising energy costs. In fact, around 75 per cent of the energy generated by these facilities is simply wasted and there is little scope for them to adapt should currently unrecyclable materials, like plastic film, suddenly become recyclable.

"Waste is actually a resource stream - up to 80 per cent of what we throw away is reusable and that figure will increase as technology develops to reuse more of it. The best approach is to have a system of waste processing that can accommodate that."

Global Renewables is currently building two MBT plants in Lancashire which will process household waste for 1.4 million people without thermal treatment, and he explained that planning permission for the facilities was quickly achieved in around four months for each, and that the plants only took around 18 months to build as opposed to three years for the average incinerator.

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A spokeswoman for London-based waste technology firm Advanced Plasma Power added that its Gasplasma technology - which turns waste into gas and a glass-like substance - was an example of technology which could convert waste into energy without the negative carbon footprint associated with other energy from waste technologies - while still diverting 99% of waste from landfill.

The company already has a small scale plant in Swindon and will announce its first full-scale plant later this year.

Importantly, she stressed that the plants only took 18 months to build and were no larger than an average sized retail warehouse and could be easily based on existing industrial sites.

Network

UK WIN - the UK without incineration network - took a different anti-incineration stance in relation to the study.

The organisation claimed that while the report did refer to the implications of delays associated with incinerator projects, there were many positive messages for campaigners to take away from it.

For instance, page 62 of the study states: "If there were no waste growth, the national target would be met comfortably, and only a third of the available landfill allowances would be used in 2020".

UK WIN said this meant that "a 1% or 2% fall would result in potentially very large sums of public money having been wasted on unnecessary disposal facilities."

It added there was a great deal in the study about the inaccuracy of predictions used to support waste management decision.

For instance, page 80 of the report states: "If WDAs overestimate the amount of waste they will need to process, both the overall cost and the cost per tonne of waste processed are likely to be higher than they would have been had estimates proved accurate."

Friends of the Earth's Waste Campaigner, Becky Slater agreed with this stance, stating: "This report highlights some of the critical problems councils face when they gamble with tax payers' money by building big incinerators. Burning rubbish contributes to climate change and sends valuable resources up in smoke - it's no wonder that they face powerful opposition from communities around the country."

SITA UK

The views of those opposed to incineration sharply contrasted with that of regional bosses at recycling and waste management company SITA UK, who strongly welcomed the support for more energy from waste plants to be built so local councils could avoid fines totalling millions of pounds.

Graham Ingleson, General Manager for SITA Tees Valley, which operates the north east's only energy from waste plant at Haverton Hill near Billingham, said: "Our facility processes waste that can't be recycled and converts it into enough electricity for 40,000 homes every year - that's a town the size of Hartlepool. Energy from waste is a safe and effective way of generating something valuable from waste that can't be recycled."

He added: "Local authorities in the region are already doing a great job on improving recycling but there is much more that we need to do to meet landfill diversion targets. This report sends out an important message because it says that even with increased recycling local authorities need to invest in robust technology such as energy from waste to avoid financial penalties."

Yesterday, Northumberland county council - which works with SITA UK - also gave its support to the reports findings, while councils called for more help to build new facilities.