DOVE

ARE LOCAL INCINERATORS JUST A LOAD OF HOT AIR?

The new incinerators may solve the landfill problem, but they're a wasted opportunity to reuse and recycle, says Lucy Siegle

Forget Scrap Heap Challenge, a real battle is raging over the future of the 30m tonnes of rubbish we produce each year, and whether hundreds of UK communities get stuck with the garbage white elephant of the century; the new style incinerator. Now is not the time to be worried about being labelled 'a not in my back yarder'.

The residents of Newhaven in East Sussex (www.dove2000.org) will discover this week whether they're stuck with a 330ft chimney by courtesy of waste giant Onyx, which will also install a waste transfer 'facility' in nearby Holligdean (www.dumpthedump.org.uk) to sort rubbish to feed the incinerator. The Holligdean plant will be sighted next to a primary school so the kids can get the full impact of the sights, sounds and of a constant stream of 40tonne trucks. Its enough to make you nostalgic for the good old days of landfill exept that they have run out of space, emit methane - 20 times more potent a greeenhouse gas than C02 - and being near one shaves seven per cent off your house price.

It remains to be seen how much a local incinerator will devalue your house, despite recent rebranding - incinerators are now ERF's (energy recovery facilities) and EFW's (energy from waste plants), focusing on their capacity to capture heat and electricity from the calorific value of rubbish. Audaciously, this electricity is sometimes referred to as 'renewable', but it's funny renewable energy that requires a perpetual supply of plastic made from non-renewable petroleum. Setting fire to the evidence of a throwaway society also rather scuppers the prospects for reducing, reusing and recyling. But its generally the prospect of emmisions including dioxins that bring out the Nimby in us. According to incineration fans, this fear is balony. The new style EFW plants kick out substantially less dangerous emissions than your average 5 November bonfire.

Evidently anti-incinerator groups attend different types of Guy Fawkes celebrations. The British Society for Ecological Medicine reports that incineration safety standards fail to take account of the fact that toxins bioaccumulate, enter the food chain and can cause chronic illnesses. Furthermore, ash from incinerators is highly toxic and driven to landfill in any case. Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.co.uk) alleges that incinerators belch out the equivalent of 300 wheelie bins of exhaust gases every second. Incineration enthusiasts like to suggest that unless we want to sit around in our own debris, it's their way as the high way, but even the big waste companies differ in opinion; 'it is entirely possible to achieve the landfill directive without using incineration', insists Peter Jones, director of Biffa Waste; 'using a flexible pick-and-mix option to utilise source separation, kerbside collection, composting, recycling and mechanical screening to deal with municipan waste.' All of which I might add will be more backyard friendly.

lucy.siegle@theobserver.co.uk