The NLWA is to vote to award the contract for the build of the 700,000-tonnes-per-year capacity facility to Madrid-based construction company Acciona on 16 December.
Cllr Peray Ahmet wrote to Martin Capstick, the NLWA’s managing director, on 30 November in a letter seen by letsrecycle.com. In her letter, she expressed concerns about air pollution from the plant.
Cllr Ahmet said: “I am asking the North London Waste Authority to consider a pause and review of the project and, in particular, to consider whether more can be done to reduce its environmental impact.
“For instance, we would like the carbon capture element of the facility to be installed from the very beginning and not in a few years’ time, in order to reduce CO2 emissions.”
I am asking the North London Waste Authority to consider a pause and review of the project
– Cllr Peray Ahmet
She added: “Before members of the NLWA take a decision on the procurement it is vital that the Authority is absolutely clear that the proposal is the best way to dispose of waste in North London and the environmental concerns of residents have been properly and fully taken into account.”
Haringey council is believed to be the first of local authorities involved to ask for the project to be paused.
Letter
In her letter, Cllr Ahmet said she was “pleased” the replacement plant would be “one of the cleanest in the world” and would “dramatically reduce the nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere”.
She also said she welcomed the fact that the energy produced by the plant would reduce Haringey’s carbon emissions by reducing the borough’s dependency on gas.
However, she said residents and local councillors were still “very worried” about the air pollution for the new plant, given it will be “significantly larger” than the current one at the site.
She added that her community “wants to do more recycling” and feels “the size of the incinerator will mean that there is an incentive to produce more waste in order to feed the associated District Energy Network”.
Cllr Ahmet said Haringey and other North London boroughs were setting up a forum to work with local communities to discuss the future of waste disposal, with a focus on the concerns regarding the facility and methods for increasing recycling rates.
She said the council was keen to work with partners including environmental campaigners and the NLWA to produce a “less waste, more circular” reuse and recycling programme which aims to achieve a 65% recycling rate by the mid-2030s.
Urgent
Cllr Clyde Loakes, the NLWA’s chair, said the NLWA was “working through the issues raised” and would provide a detailed response “in due course”.
Cllr Loakes said: “In the meantime, I would like to reiterate that the existing plant is the oldest in Europe and needs to be replaced urgently.
“The project is an important part of all our boroughs’ drive to cut carbon emissions and we’re accelerating our plan for carbon capture and storage as part of the NLHPP.”
Cllr Loakes said the NLWA had designed the facility “flexibly” to encourage people to recycle more so it would not compete with higher recycling rates or create demand for waste.
He also said the facility would improve air quality by using the “most advanced” pollution controls available, and that all evidence, information and issues had been “thoroughly” reviewed by “experts”.
“Any delay would jeopardise the environmentally responsible service we provide for all north London boroughs and inevitably make waste management services much more expensive,” Cllr Loakes added.
Edmonton
The NLWA manages waste transportation and disposal on behalf of seven boroughs – Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest – in the North London area, serving more than two million people.
The NLWA’s existing 500,000-tonnes-per-year capacity EfW plant in Edmonton is decades old. It is to be knocked down and replaced with the larger facility, with the heat used locally. The new plant is scheduled to be operational in 2025.
The tender process to build the plant was launched last year and is valued at £683 million. Acciona confirmed to letsrecycle.com that it was bidding for the project (see letsrecycle.com story).
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