The environmental pressure group was responding to the new household waste strategy outlined by city councillors last week (see letsrecycle.com story). The strategy sets out aims to recycle 18% of the city's waste within the next three years. But the majority of the annual 250,000 tonnes of household waste will be going to a new energy-from-waste recovery facility to be completed in 2005.
Commenting on the council's plans, FoE spokesman for the Yorkshire and Humberside region Tim Sander said: “It's appalling – aside from the environmental and social impacts of the incinerator, there's the very real economic affect – the loss of material that could otherwise be recycled. It's a very backward step. There's been tremendous opposition to this, and yet Sheffield councillors still chose to go down that route.”
Mr Sanders pointed out that the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Assembly is to debate its regional waste strategy in May, and that this could have real implications on what happens to waste management in Sheffield.
“If the Assembly proposes 50% recycling rates by 2015, Sheffield will have quite a gap to make up,” he explained. “From what we understand, Onyx will be the main beneficiary of this waste strategy – they only have to fund recycling up to 18%, but anything beyond that, Sheffield council will be funding… and it is the Sheffield taxpayer that will end up paying.”
Mr Sanders added: “Sheffield councillors missed a golden opportunity with this waste strategy – they've blown it.”
Government
Meanwhile, the government has defended the role of incineration in reaching the UK's landfill diversion targets as required by the European Landfill Directive. In a standing committee debate on the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, environment minister Michael Meacher vetoed a new clause calling for a moratorium on incineration.
The minister said: “It would be unwise to have an exclusion clause, under which increases in incineration would not be permitted whatever the circumstances, as President Chirac might say.”
In a debate that also involved Guildford's anti-incineration MP, Sue Doughty, the minister explained that for many materials, particularly hazardous materials, incineration is the best practicable environmental option, stressing that it “is not serious politics to suggest that incineration's role will be zero”.
Mr Meacher indicated that the government's forthcoming report responding to the Strategy Unit's recommendations on UK waste policies would include measures to develop alternative technologies for the treatment of waste.
He explained: “We are seeking to develop pyrolysis, gasification, anaerobic digestion, mechanical biological treatment—and, no doubt, other technologies of which I am unaware. We are giving support to that and, although it may not be understood, we believe that those technologies can transfer 2,500,000 tonnes away from landfill every year by 2009–10 without using incineration. That is very significant.”
The environment minister also revealed his personal support for an incineration tax. He said: “New clauses [proposed for the WET Bill] suggest an incineration tax – and other fiscal measures – to act as a disincentive to incineration and to encourage reuse and recycling. I do not disagree with that.”
For more information on the Waste and Emissions Trading Bill, see the letsrecycle.com legislation section.
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