Incineration lazy landfill alternative, says Greens

Mark Ruskell and Hilary Charles make their point with Perth in the backdrop

Dundee Courier, Saturday 9 April 2011

PLANS TO incinerate rubbish were branded a "lazy alternative to landfill" by the Green party yesterday. Green candidates for the Holyrood election, Mark Ruskell and Hilary Charles, met activists fighting the continuing threat from plans to construct waste incinerator plants at Shore road in Perth and at Binn Farm, Glenfarg.

The pair were in Perth itself and also in Fife in Auchtermuchty, where there are concerns about the implications of the
Binn Farm plan as its nearest neighbouring settlement.

The pair, who head the Scottish Greens candidate list for Mid Scotland and Fife, were keen to point out to voters that they were the only party completely opposed to waste incineration technology.

They fear proposals for "energy from waste" facilities already on the table for the two local sites could receive consent after May 5, depending on the makeup of the next Scottish Government.

Despite last year's decision by Perth and Kinross Council to rescind planning approval for the Shore Road site, the threat has not gone away, as Grundon plans to return with revised plans in May.

A second incinerator was given planning consent at Binn Farm in 2006 despite letters of objection from almost a
third of the residents of nearby Abernethy, though the project has been delayed as developers seek revised planning consent for a different type of incinerator known as a gasifier.

"People; of Perth united across the political spectrum last year to see off proposals from Grundon to build an
incinerator at Shore Road, right in the heart of the city,' leaving just the already agreed site at Binn Farm on the table and likely to go ahead," said Mr Ruskell, a former MSP.

"That was great news for Perth, but will have been a hollow victory if SITA's plans to build another incinerator at Binn Farm go ahead. "This utterly unsuitable project is designed to burn up to 60,000 tonnes of waste a year — much of it imported from outside Perth and Kinross — and the site lies just five miles south of the city boundary.

"Not only will that scheme blight the lives of local communities in Abernethy, Glenfarg and Auchtermuchty in Fife, who are all on the doorstep of the site, but emissions from whichever kind of incinerator is built will pose an ongoing heath threat on a much wider front, with the potential to affect Perth city and much of Fife as well.

"All of the big parties at Holyrood support incineration and 'energy from waste' technologies - at national level so I would urge Perth voters to remain vigilant and think carefully about who they would like to see hold the balance of power and influence on this issue in the next government."

Hilary Charles, a long-term opponent of the Binn Farm plans, added, "Much of the material being treated by these
plants can and should be recycled. Incineration is simply a lazy alternative to landfill.

"There are much better ways of reducing and treating waste, but only the Green party has the vision and commitment to drive forward to deliver these greener solutions."

In Fife, those who live in Auchtermuchty and surrounding villages will be among the nearest neighbours of the plant
at Binn Farm if it goes ahead.

SITA UK predicts that the impact on air quality from an incinerator would be small. It also claimed there was no evidence that a well-managed, modern waste management facility would have an adverse health impact on the local population.

While an incinerator would release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the firm said it would also generate electricity which otherwise might be produced from fossil fuels and that overall it would reduce the release of global warming gases by an estimated 13,900 tonnes. Plans for a gasification plant were submitted to Perth and Kinross Council last autumn.

Gasification involves heating waste in a sealed chamber in the near absence of oxygen, so organic materials do not
burn but reform into synthesis gas.

This mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane — rather than the waste itself — is then burnt to generate electricity.