from Sunday Herald, 07 May 2006
AS many as 10 large waste incinerators are being planned by local authorities across Scotland, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The plans, put out by the Scottish Executive alongside new recycling figures on Friday, include three plants in the Glasgow area. Another two waste-burners are destined for the north of Scotland, plus one each in Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Tayside, Fife and Lothian.
In the past, any move to build new incinerators has provoked fierce public opposition, raising concerns about toxic pollution. As a result, the new proposals are regarded within government as highly sensitive.
Yesterday, the plans were attacked by environmentalists, who called on ministers to reject them.
Under European law, Scotland must cut the amount of biodegradable municipal waste dumped in landfill sites from 1.6 million tonnes to 0.6m tonnes by 2020. To date, progress has been achieved by increasing the amount being recycled or composted.
But in local authorities’ latest submissions to the Scottish Executive, made available under the Freedom of Information Act, they say they will need new furnaces in the next few years. Critics now claim incinerators have been renamed “gasification”, “energy from waste” or “combined heat and power” plants in a bid to make them more acceptable to the public.
The most ambitious plans cover seven councils in the Glasgow area and Clyde Valley, proposing gasification plants to handle a total of 540,000 tonnes of waste a year at Polmadie, Linwood and Queenslie, with a reserve site at Shieldhall.
The siting of two energy from waste plants in the north of Scotland, covering four councils, is recognised as being “contentious”. Two potential sites “in Moray” and two “near Aberdeen” have been shortlisted, though their exact whereabouts are not specified.
The plan for Ayrshire, which covers three councils, does not specify a site for its combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Tayside, covering three councils, wants an energy from waste plant for Perth and Kinross . Fife says it will need “one or two” CHP plants “at sites to be determined”. No details of the plans for Lanarkshire and Lothian are available.
Just one group of three local authorities in Forth Valley says it can manage to cut the amount of waste going to landfill without a new incinerator. It proposes to maximise recycling and build a “mechanical biological treatment plant” instead. Environmental groups say other authorities ought to follow this good example.
Stuart Hay from Friends of the Earth Scotland said: “Local councillors and environment ministers need to be aware that a headlong rush to incineration will be bad not just for the environment but for their electoral fortunes.
“This incineration shopping list demonstrates that most of Scotland’s local authorities are adopting a lazy and half-baked approach to waste management, naively believing there won’t be a public backlash.”
And Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland, called for the plans to be “sent back to the drawing board”.
Local authorities’ waste plans will now be assessed by the Scottish Executive. Nobody from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities was available to comment yesterday.
The latest waste statistics are available here from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
