Incinerator limits hit Lothians waste plans

Published on Friday 25 January 2008 09:27

OFFICIALS trying to cut the amount of Lothians waste going to landfill have been sent back to the drawing board after the Scottish Government announced new limits on the use of incinerators.

All of the Lothians' councils backed the idea of new "energy from waste" processing plants in a bid to cut the amount of waste going to landfill.

And they envisaged sending up to 50 per cent of the Lothians waste to an incinerator which burns rubbish to produce electricity by 2020. But new government targets unveiled yesterday ruled no more than 25 per cent of municipal waste is to be used to generate energy by 2025.

The plan also rules out the use of largescale incinerators which also puts separate plans for a 140 million 'super' incinerator in East Lothian in doubt.

The cap on incineration was announced by environment secretary Richard Lochhead as part of a strategy to move Scotland towards a zero waste society.

Campaigners fighting plans for the super incinerator near Dunbar welcomed the government plans to cap the amount of energy which can be generated from waste.

The 140 million plan submitted by waste contractor Viridor would see a plant capable of dealing with 450,000 tonnes of waste a year – more than twice the amount produced by Edinburgh.

Philip Banks, spokesman for the Irate pressure group, said: "The Viridor proposal is on a super scale and will involve the importing of waste from not just from neighbouring areas but also England.

"It is encouraging that the Government has recognised the inefficiencies of large incinerators like the one proposed here and it shows how much of a white elephant we could have on our hands if this were to go ahead.

"The good thing for us is that this guiding principle will hopefully strengthen the hand of East Lothian council when it comes to determining the Viridor application and, hopefully, dismissing it as totally inappropriate."

Edinburgh Central MSP and Labour environment spokeswoman Sarah Boyack said the SNP's proposals to permit a limited amount of waste from energy schemes had merit but required further clarification

Lothians SNP MSP Shirley-Anne Somerville welcomed the end of government support for large waste incineration projects.

She said: "Large scale incineration plants are inefficient, destroy valuable resources and are counter-productive in the battle to encourage recycling. The Edinburgh and Borders Waste Management Project would tie us down to producing waste for 25-30 years, not reducing it."

But Lothians Green MSP Robin Harper said incinerators had no role to play in creating a greener Scotland. He said: "They are costly, polluting, and they blight both local communities and anyone downwind of them.

It is grossly misleading for ministers to describe burning up to a quarter of Scotland's waste as part of a zero waste strategy."