Over 200 members from across the SW met at Taunton this weekend for our regional conference. We had a good debate on Zero Waste and saying NO to mass burn Incineration which was won. Also had a debate on the poor settlement for some our local fire brigades from the government.
Bath and NE Somerset was the first Council in the UK to adopt Zero Waste as its policy following a motion from Cllr Roger Symonds and myself. Since then the movement has been building but the Government is certainly doing all it can to ram ass Burn Incineration down everyone’s throat. We are fighting Labour+Conservative plans for a big incinerator in Bristol. Incineration is not an environmental solution it is an excuse to avoid addressing the issue of waste.
At the Conference we hear form our new president Ros Scott, our Europe leader Graham Watson, Nick Clegg and then today Vince Cable.
As ever he is the only politician making serious points about the horrendous state of the economy. It is worse here than in the world in general but all the Conservatives can say is Yah Boo to Gordon and Gordon still thinks he is saving the world!!! what a joke.
Hi Paul,
“ass Burn Incineration” – oops 🙂
I agree that the goal should be less waste produced in the first place, but it seems entirely wasteful to bury large quantities of post-consumer waste in the ground instead of using its latent energy to generate electricity etc.
If clean end-of-pipe technology were in place, incineration could be a useful source of energy. I don’t think it’s as simple as “Incineration=not green”. How quickly we’ve forgotten that, only two or three years ago, all the talk was of energy crisis, not carbon.
Best regards,
Tim
Hi Tim
If the policy is Zero Waste then non-reusable elements are designed out and so everything that is made can largely be reused. Burning things and calling it energy from waste promotes lazy design and actually wastes resource. The use/misuse of energy is another issue. If the Government was serious about carbon it would start ensuring all our housing stock was made energy efficient. Incinerators are owned and operated by huge corporations in whose interest it is to ensure that we manufacture things and consume wastefully so that these beasts will be fed for the next 25 years.
For me it is a simple equation Incineration + not a sound environmental policy.
cheers
Paul