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Sunday, 01 March 2015 17:07

Residents Question SCC Cabinet on Viability of 'Eco Park' Plan

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"Eco Park" incineratorThe planning permission that Surrey County Council gave to itself for the construction of an incinerator at the Charlton Lane Community Recycling Centre is now to be re-considered by the SCC Cabinet on grounds of affordability and value for money. When the Cabinet met on 24th February it heard that delays, (for which our campaigners combining with SATEP may justifiably claim credit!) have resulted in revisions to pricing'.

LOSRA campaign member, Brian Catt took the opportunity to address the Cabinet stating that the Eco Park is "now an avoidable mistake" based on it being an expensive disposal of waste, having minimal energy recovery and having "a very high risk of failure". He added: "In the light of these clear facts, especially that the Eco Park is low volume expensive disposal, and not yet begun, can the County assure its councillors that officers' value study will include the better available opportunities for the County to realise best practice in treating our dry waste?"

At the same meeting, LOSRA member, Peter Crews, asked what options are due to be considered in the review and was told by Cllr. Furey (acting Cabinet member for Environment and planning) that it would be either amending the existing waste contract, or terminating the waste contract and achieving recycling and landfill diversion improvements without new infrastructure by securing alternative technology. Peter concluded: "Finally, do you agree the value for money assessment completely misses the point as it is based on the [erroneus] assumption that Surrey must build an incinerator?" The Leader, David Hodge said their questions would be answered after the meeting.

Last Tuesday's Cabinet meeting was originally earmarked to further detail the impacts of delays in the delivery on value for money and affordability of the Eco Park project but the decision has now been put back to 28th April. Cllr. Furey confirmed that the evaluation of each option would include the 'whole life cost' of construction, operation and maintenance.

3 comments

  • Comment Link Brian Catt Monday, 02 March 2015 20:54 posted by Brian Catt

    I case you think I am indeed making this up and it is not the facts, and Cllr Furey is an honest and knowledgeable man of unquestionable ethical .conduct - and they obviously wouldn't build a 150 foot high white elephant that has a high risk of not working, ever, check this out:

    http://wtert.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/history-of-gasification-of-municipal.html

    These are a pro hi tech waste treatment organisation in Scandinavia. Sic:

    "A number of (gasification) plants were built in Europe and a number of efforts were done to successfully scale up the technology. However, it didn´t work anywhere unless you had a very very homogenous input of fuel to the reactors. Waste is not a homogenous fuel. It has so far turned out to be too heterogenous to be able to treat in a gasification or pyrolysis process, irrespective of how you pre-treat the waste. It is absolutely not applicable for mixed MSW with today's technology. Another very negative factor is that the energy balance very often has turned out to be negative.

    It would, from an environmental point of view, be an excellent method if it worked, with low emissions and with a very small and environmentally safe residue, but unfortunately the situation today and the experiences are the same today as almost 40 years ago, even if there have been and still are efforts to introduce gasification and pyrolysis on the market."

    ENDS

  • Comment Link Carol Monday, 02 March 2015 20:04 posted by Carol

    Is there any reasonable chance of stopping this nightmare situation, Brian?

  • Comment Link BRian Catt Monday, 02 March 2015 19:32 posted by BRian Catt

    Lots of homework being done to reinforce the facts about what Surrey can in fact do under the law, versus what its officers artificially limit Councillors to with false assertion - not an opinion, a fact.

    Why? - "Independent" SCC officers have worked with SITA to ensure the large and regressive c£100M extra subsidy fuelled profit for incineration over landfill from DEFRA goes to its crony PFI supplier SITA, at the expense of all our life expectancies from the PM's it WILL emit over our schools and won't effectively filter, as happens everywhere else.

    In fact they are denying the many real alternatives that are better on every eco and value measure of their own and DEFRA policy - that aren't SITA's undersized, unproven., pre-failed on the facts technology that recovers barely any energy so is classed as disposal, no better than managed landfill at 1/4 the price BEFORE FINES. 1/10 the capacity but nearly the same physical size as a serious and efficient 400ktonne pa incinerator.

    AGain, all so they can tick a DEFRA PFI grant box and their exclusive PFI contractor SITA can pocket an extra £100M profit from taxpayer subsidy that DEFRA gives SCC to pay SITA for burning the waste at 4 times the price/£85 per tonne (also 4 times what it cost elsewhere) in their crony capitalist incinerator at taxpayer's expense, versus a more efficient competitor or well managed landfill with substantial energy recovery that just works at £25/tonne, plus those regressive DEFRA fines designed to drive waste away from modern managed landfill into equally nasty but more [profitable incinerators that rpoduce more CO2 declared "green" CO2 so therefore OK. One for the chemists.

    There was not enough profit in Landfill, diminishing with better recycling, for SITA and DEFRA's waste cartel. So they rigged the pricing to work with the fines and drive the waste to much more profitable incineration, by law. In Sweden they still have the landfill fines BUT incinerate waste at honest prices, som less than landfill..

    This has nothing to do with eco. Everyhting to do with a fast buck for the bin men. The risks in our densely populated suburb are far greater than those in other leafier Surrey Boroughs in the country - where it was considered too risky! But OK to dump in Spelthorne. I could go on... call if you want me too. 01932 772731

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