Ministers 'lazy and shortsighted' over rise of incinerators

Published on Wednesday 29 July 2009 22:05

AN INTERNATIONAL waste expert has criticised the Scottish Government as "lazy and shortsighted" for allowing an increasing number of giant incinerators to be built.

Professor Paul Connett said building vast numbers of incinerators would put at risk Scotland's aim of creating a zero waste society and pose a threat to public health.

If all the incinerators in the planning system are approved there could be 12 in Scotland within a few years. Until recently, just two existed.

Prof Connett, a chemistry professor from St Lawrence University in Canton, New York, who has lectured about incinerators for 15 years, said they were the wrong approach.

He called for an end to the burning of rubbish and said it should all be composted, recycled or reused instead – with studies set up to find ways to remove anything from the waste stream that cannot be dealt with in those ways.

He was speaking at Invergordon, where a controversial new energy-from-waste incinerator is planned.

Waste firms argue that the plants benefit the environment by generating electricity and heat from rubbish.

However, Prof Connett said: "It doesn't make sense to spend millions of pounds on incinerators. If we want to maximise recycling, composting, reuse and so on, then the last thing we should do is build incinerators."

Criticising the Scottish Government for allowing new incinerators, instead of finding more sustainable ways of dealing with waste, he said: "I think laziness is the key. I think many politicians who don't want to spend a lot of time on waste want to believe in this magic machine and this quick fix.

"It's a lazy solution and it looks like a quick fix. But it isn't quick and if doesn't fix the problem."

Campaigners fear that, by allowing large numbers of incinerators, some of which can burn 300,000 tonnes of waste a year, the incentive to recycle or reuse rubbish is removed – local authorities are locked into a situation where the incinerators must be fed with rubbish.

In the past few years two incinerators have been built in Scotland – in Dumfries and Irvine – in addition to the two that already existed in Shetland and Baldovie.

Four more have been granted planning permission, and applications have been lodged for four others. In total, they would burn about 1.5 million tonnes of waste every year.

Although waste companies insist incinerators are safe, Prof Connett said he was not convinced, arguing that they produce carcinogenic dioxins and nanoparticles – tiny particles that are too small to capture.

Fiona Sinclair, a founder member of the group Communities Against Toxics, who has campaigned against incinerators in Scotland for decades, said: "It's completely nonsensical. It's Scottish ministers and civil servants looking for some nice easy solution – but this is not it."

Duncan McLaren, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said he was concerned about too many incinerators being built.

"All too often an incinerator is not recovering energy from waste – it's a waste of energy," he said. "It takes things that are recyclable and burns them. While that generates some energy, someone else somewhere else is using more energy to make a new product to replace the material that should be recycled."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Incineration has a limited role to play in the management of waste, and no more than 25 per cent of waste can be treated by way of incineration. Our zero waste policy makes clear that the Scottish Government favours waste reduction, reuse and recycling over incineration.

"The current generation of waste incinerators operate within strict regulatory limits and health risks are not significant."