The ruling Lib Dem group at Bath and North East Somerset Council have publicly’ vowed’ to end – what they call – the practice of sending residents’ black rubbish bag to Europe to be incinerated.
They plan to burn it nearer to home in a scheme that would also – they say – see the amount of rubbish sent to landfill drop from over 12,000 tonnes per year to 4,000 and potentially a lot less.
Cllr David Wood (Lib Dem), Cabinet Member for Neighbourhood Services, said:
“It’s terrible in this day and age that we send our rubbish all the way to the continent to be incinerated; with Climate Change at the top of the agenda we need to be more careful with our carbon footprint. Sending so much rubbish to landfill is also the worst possible thing we can do. Landfilled rubbish creates methane that worsens Climate Change.”
Instead he says, ” It will instead be kept in Somerset and incinerated for electricity to power homes and businesses. These changes will reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill down to 8% and potentially lower still.
This is good news for residents of Bath and North East Somerset and great news for the environment.”
Of course some people may ask why so much needs to be incinerated in the first place.
However filtered the smoke – this is still putting carbon into the atmosphere.
Will this be using the new Avonmouth Resource Recovery Centre which is nearing completion?
According to waste operator Viridor’s website: ‘Once operational the centre will use safe, environmentally sustainable and reliable technology to divert 320,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste away from landfill.
The ERF will also generate up to 282GWh of electricity which will power the facility itself and export enough energy to power the equivalent of 77,280 homes.’
Cannot we improve on how much is being recycled and put more pressure on supermarkets – and other users of the obnoxious packaging material – to cut back on plastic?
I don’t see how burning the stuff is contributing to the Council’s declared Climate Emergency?
Perhaps rough-sleeping and begging in Bath should be at the top of the council’s agenda? The door-ways of the many empty stores in the town centre now provide permanent accommodation for the homeless and the such goods as they possess. I’d be happy to provide pictures to councillors and officials who might not yet have noticed the gradual fraying of this World Heritage town.
The ‘Waste Hierarchy diagram” can help here. http://bpvocc.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-praise-of-plastics.html
Jeremy
Davidkernenek is right, but this isn’t the subject of Mr Wyatt’s article.