The move is a response to resident protests against the county's plans to use MBT to process household waste.
” We are going to take the message out proactively, because everybody needs to understand what we are doing.“
– Dorset county council
As part of the county council's waste strategy, three mechanical biological treatment plants are planned for Hurn, Winfrith and Ferndown. MBT sees mixed household waste treated with a series of mechanical separation machines and composted to reduce it in terms of quantity and produce a stable material to be landfilled or used as a fuel.
About 500 residents took to the streets of Ferndown in protest against the possibility of an MBT plant being built in their neighbourhood in May.
Dorset has said that the council must move towards MBT as a way of diverting waste from landfill. By 2010 the county needs to be sending no more than 82,565 tonnes of waste to landfill per year and the council sees MBT as the best way of insuring this is achieved.
The council is currently putting together plans to communicate to its residents the importance of the three MBT plants.
Misinformation
A spokesman for the council, told letsrecycle.com: “There has been a certain amount of misinformation about what an MBT is – some people believe it is just another word for incineration. There is also a lot of talk about it producing large quantities of harmful emissions.
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“We must make sure that we get the fact out to our residents, not just the protestors, to all our residents. We are putting the finishing touches to our communication strategy, there are a variety of options that we could follow. We are going to take the message out proactively, because everybody needs to understand what we are doing,” he added.
The council has been running meetings, advertising on its website and releasing press releases about the MBT plants since the waste strategy was first released. But according to the spokesman there are still a great deal of people that need to be reached if the council is going to get the backing of its residents.
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