Incineration - Why it must stop! PUBLIC OPPOSITION

Public Opposition

According to statistics, in the US incineration is the most unpopular technology since nuclear power!

"US Development at a Standstill
"Since 1985, in the US, over 300 trash incinerators, have been defeated or put on hold. In 1985, California had plans for 35 incinerators, only 3 were built, the rest were cancelled. In 1985, New Jersey had plans for 22 trash incinerators, only 5 have been built. A sixth planned for Mercer County was finally defeated after many years of struggle, in November 1996. Since 1994, more incinerators have been closed down than those that have gone on line.
"As of this writing (October 1998) there is not one active proposal to build a trash incinerator of any significant size (i.e. above 40 tons per day) in the US. The last proposal considered was one by Foster Wheeler in the town of Pennsville, NJ. Not only did the County Commissioners reject this proposal, but Foster Wheeler has announced since this defeat and a humiliating debacle with the fluidised bed incinerator which it built in Robbins, Illinois, that it is getting out of the Waste- to-energy incineration business in the US (35). Several other large engineering firms have pulled out of the incinerator business in the US, including Combustion Engineering, Blount, Dravo, Westinghouse, General Electric and Ebasco.
This leaves only three major players: Ogden Martin, Wheelabrator and American Refuel. Two of these are owned by major waste companies (WMI and BFI) which can cover their loss on the incinerator front with developments in other areas of their waste business."
- Municipal waste incineration: A poor solution for the twenty first century, Dr. Paul Connett, 4th Annual International Management Conference 1998

There has also been strong opposition to new incinerators in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Ireland, the UK and many other countries, both in the North and in the South. The Germans are considered by many to build, operate and regulate their incinerators better than any other country, and yet opposition to new incinerators since the late 1980s has been intense. In the last few years a very strong grass-roots movement against incineration has emerged in France, too. They have generated more press coverage on dioxin and the contamination of the food chain than any other country in the world. In Bangladesh it was that a seemingly local waste problem's "solution" - a vast incinerator - was actually going to burn waste shipped in from New York City. The project was stopped in its tracks. The Irish Republic has had such strong opposition to municipal waste incineration that, despite the machinations of the IDA [Irish Development Agency], there is not one municipal waste incinerator in the Republic.
So why are there numerous municipal waste incinerators in the UK, with several more on the drwing board?
Too often authorities, in league with corporate finance, make the decision to build an incinerator before they have consulted with the public in any meaningful way. Indeed, the planning application aspect is set to worsen, as this report from FoE [Friends of the Earth] makes clear:

"Friends of the Earth is appalled at Government plans to fast-track the planning system for major infrastructure projects, published today, which undermines local democracy and environmental protection. The list of projects to be 'approved by Parliament' and not open to question at a public inquiry includes chemical plants, quarries, open-cast coal mines and dual-carriageways over 30km, as well as nuclear facilities, runways and ports. Friends of the Earth lawyers will now closely study the proposals to ensure they comply with human rights and environmental protection legislation.
Under Government proposals, Parliament will make the decision on a project and any local inquiry will take as read the principle of, need for and location. Friends of the Earth says this will be disastrous for the environment and citizens' rights.
Hugh Ellis, Planning Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
'We are stunned by the scope of this announcement. The Government has completely caved-in to industry. Under these disastrous proposals local peoples rights to object to chemical plants, quarries and open-cast coal mines has been severely undermined. Our lawyers will examine these details very closely.
'These plans are a nightmare for local democracy and the environment. Parliament will decide whether a community gets an airport, port or road in their neighbourhood. Local people will only have a say on smaller issues - such as what colour to paint the gates at their new nuclear power station.'"
- OUTRAGE OVER GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS TO FAST-TRACK PLANNING SYSTEM, 17 Dec 2001, FOE website

There is also a natural tendency towards the high-tech solution and give little credence to solutions in which organisation and education must play a dominant role. However, treating the public the way they do often proves disastrous for their plans even here. What is billed as a "quick-fix" solution isn't quick, if the public organises to oppose it. And the public do not take kindly to outright lies. It is at this point that the local media step in. Few newspapers are run by oppositional people. In fact the reverse is usually the case. It is rare that a local paper, still less a national one, will rock the boat regardless of the public good.
Case Study:
The campaign against the Allington incinerator is a case in point. Few, even in Kent, realized that this was being planned. The KCC [Kent County Council] had taken up a contract with a "local" firm [without competition] that was in fact a shell company for Pacific Electrics, America's biggest and dirtiest energy provider, with holdings worldwide. They located their planned incinerator in a small quarry just outside Maidstone. This quarry is, according to Southern Water, sufficiently close to the water to table to more or less guarantee leaching into the water supply. Although the proposals insisted that the quarry would not have waste dumped in it, it transpired that the operator planned to backfill the quarry with bottom ash - which of course would contain dioxins and heavy metals.
Importantly this was just outside enough to have another name, Allington. Since most local opposition is from NIMBY's ["Not In My Back Yard"], not having to call it the Maidstone incinerator was a great help in averting opposition. In addition to this, the local paper was not going to report this kind of story objectively, as it was owned and printed by Aylesford Newsprint, a company that favored the plans, as their own on-site incinerator [about a mile away] was no longer large enough to handle the toxic solvents that they produced at the plant.
The local MP, Anne Widdecombe, was from the opposition Tory party, which at that time shared the Labour government's fixation with building more incinerators. Although claiming neutrality, she made it quite clear at the few public meetings that took place that she had no time for "greenies" and that anyone anti-incineration was by definition a "greenie" and should not, therefore, be listened to.
It was also problematic that the local communities in opposition fell into the trap of supporting Integrated Waste Management as an alternative, since it was [suspiciously] easily co-opted by the unscrupulous company involved. They quickly adopted the ideas of IWM and claimed their plant to be an excellent example of it, as, principally to make themselves look okay guys, they said that they would be recycling paper and plastic. Since the main support in the area was from Aylesford Newsprint, a massive recycled paper works, it was easy for the incinerator operators to offload some paper, and about 3% of plastic can be recycled. However, this hardly constitutes an integrated waste management plant, especially as these very materials were exactly the high calorific value fuels that they would most wish to keep fro themselves. Some glass would be recycled, but glass can be a bit of a problem for incinerators to burn, so it would have to be removed from the waste stream anyway.
Needless to say, the Allington incinerator is going ahead. The Environment minister is not going to call it in for a public inquiry.

Proposed Waste Incinerators - •
The red rings show the minimum radius of particulate fallout

This outcome is typical in the UK. Part of the tactic from the South East region's authorities has been to moot several other plans at the same time, often in locations that clearly are not serious propositions. This splits dissent between sevetal weak groups. In recent years, these groups, especially in the Kent, Surrey and Sussex, have become more organized and interconnected. It is to hoped that they will be effective in oppoiong these new incinerator plans. These include one near Redhill [near the M25 and therefore easy access to Dover - accepted], Newhaven [a Channel Port - a serious likelihood], and Mountfield [a village near Battle and Hastings - not a serious contender unless the Hastings Bypass goes ahead, which people believe to be unlikely, though frankly watch this space].

"Fortunately, the public's fears about the pollutants released and those captured in the residues, as well as incineration's enormous economic costs, when made visible, have dramatically slowed down the building of these facilities in both northern and southern countries alike. If one avoids the beguiling but inaccurate label "waste-to-energy" one can see that these facilities do not belong in a future in which sustainability will become the key issue for survival. In my view, when you build an incinerator in your community you are advertising to the world that you were not clever enough, either politically or technically, to recover your discarded resources in a manner which is responsible to your local community or future generations."
- Municipal waste incineration: A poor solution for the twenty first century, Dr. Paul Connett, 4th Annual International Management Conference 1998

One of the most powerful elements of UK protests in the late nineties has been the fact that the small groups have not only made efforts to join up, but that they have also been proactive regarding the problem of having a constructive alternative. See the next page, Viable Alternatives.