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INTRODUCTION
Green
Alternatives to Incineration in Scotland (GAINS)
emerged from a gathering of Scottish incinerator protest groups at the Scottish Parliament on 1 October
2009 - scroll down to see some photos of the event.
Our purpose is to
enable fellow campaigners to share information and inspire the 'Powers that Be' to turn away from the lazy approach of burning waste, and instead adopt forward-thinking and imaginative ways to reduce, reuse and recycle waste.
Background
Under the terms of the European
Waste
Incineration Directive (WID), any facility that burns waste must have
a WID permit (in Scotland, the permitting authority is SEPA) unless it
meets certain exemption criteria (click here
and go to s1.1). Currently SEPA licenses 13 such plants (click here for
list), and is responsible for enforcing their safe operation.
Three of these facilities - Shetland, Dundee and
Dumfries - burn municipal waste, which consists mostly of
household rubbish. Additionally, there are proposals for around 20 more plants to burn
municipal waste in Scotland (click on 'Proposed
Waste Burners' for locations). If all of these are built, Scotland will be burning
around 2 million tonnes of
waste every year, adding around 10% to Scotland's carbon footprint by
2020.
Additionally
there are proposals for 5 very large biomass-powered generators in Dundee,
Rosyth, Grangemouth, Leith and Markinch. Each would burn between 400,000
and 2,000,000 tonnes of biomass each year. They will also burn some paper and card, in which
case they will also require a WID permit. As they will all produce more
than 50MW of energy, they will require permission from Scottish Ministers.
They will mostly burn imported virgin timber, which simply isn't
sustainable in such large quantities. It will take at least 50 years for
new trees to re-absorb the CO2 they emit (burning biomass produces 1½
times its own weight in CO2).
Zero
Waste
We
reject the Scottish Government's view that waste incineration is a
renewable source of energy, compatible with
the aim of achieving a zero waste society. Instead we support the
definition of zero waste adopted by the Zero Waste International Alliance on November 29,
2004 (click here
to find out more):
Photos
from Scottish No-Burn Action Day, 1 Oct 2009
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