Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 133)
TUESDAY 31 OCTOBER 2000
MR MALCOLM
CHILTON, MR
TONY HIRONS
AND MR
KEITH COLLINS
120. Who should be looking at those particular
circumstances?
(Mr Hirons) The local authority in terms of planning
for their waste disposal will be working with the general public
and keeping that information within the public domain. The waste
management company will come along with a variety of options for
dealing with that waste, including BPEO, including the proximity
principle, including trying to make sure that there is a minimisation
of traffic movements involved. In a way it is almost horses for
courses.
121. So it is not a general statement in the
way you have portrayed it, it is horses for courses.
(Mr Hirons) Yes.
(Mr Chilton) I think we have to demonstrate BPEO in
three ways. We demonstrate it in the tender process as part of
our proposals to say that this integrated waste strategy we are
offering represents BPEO, and often that is supported by quite
detailed life cycle analysis within a tender, which is a very
complex thing for us to do. I should say that all tenders these
days include high levels of recycling as well as waste to energy.
No longer are there any companies out there who just offer waste
to energy, it is integrated waste management solutions. We do
it as part of the tender, we do it as part of the planning process.
In the Environmental Impact Statement we go through many issues
associated with BPEO for the particular waste stream and then
as part of the IPPC authorisation for the Environment Agency we
also have to demonstrate Best Practicable Environmental Option
again, in particular with reference to energy efficiency and the
abatement techniques that we are using on the plant. There is
a fairly thorough test associated with each particular proposal.
122. Public Interest Consultants: what are the
deficiencies of the Environment Agency in relation to health implications
of incineration?
(Mr Collins) I will take a couple of points on that.
My colleague, Alan Watson, after seeing the DETR estimates on
deaths caused or brought foward by incineration began to have
discussions with the Environment Agency and they mentioned back
in May that they had been having discussions with the Department
of Health, which seemed reasonable. We requested copies of the
correspondence. This is a log of his letters back and forth trying
to get information from the Department of Health. The Department
of Health does not want people dying. The DETR, and hopefully,
the Environment Agency would not either but the REIA document
says that they are, so they should release the correspondence.
Eventually it got to the point where they said "no, we are
sorry, it is internal communications, it could adversely affect
future working relations, it is confidential". This went
on for a period of months more and, funnily enough, I believe
yesterday a fax came through saying they had taken the time and
gone through five boxes of files and discovered there is, in fact,
no file correspondence between the Environment Agency now and
the Department of Health. If there is not any correspondence I
would say somebody is completely incompetent. If there is correspondence
then apparently it is lost. That is the Environment Agency right
now on the incinerators. The second example that I really want
to mention is—
Chairman
123. On that piece of evidence, if we could
have that because, of course, we will be seeing the Environment
Agency later on in our inquiry and it seems to me it is a very
positive question to put to them.
(Mr Collins) Yes. The second piece is Byker. Byker
is a national disaster and the full implications are not out yet.
You had high dioxin levels in thousands of tonnes of ash being
spread over a decade. Dioxin levels of up to 10,000 TEQ ng/kg.
Not 30, not 60, not 200, but 10,000 ng/kg. That is a big number
and that is certainly not good for people. Yet that was spread
all over the allotments. It also went to many other places in
Newcastle and there are just not records of many of these places.
The Environment Agency was in that plant numerous times and there
was a skip of mixed fly ash and bottom ash there and workers climbed
in and out of it regularly to break it up and it blew all over
the surrounding neighbourhood and the Environment Agency said
"you should cover the skip". I really think that is
sound advice, perhaps it should have been followed by a few more
sound pieces of advice but it was not, the spreading went on for
years unchecked. I believe they also had the "brown snow"
emissions episode that lasted for two days in 1996 and the Environment
Agency did nothing. The plant was owned by the council, so what
are local citizens to do? If it is owned by the Council, they
are not doing anything about it, they keep running it. The Environment
Agency comes in and only says to the staff they should shut the
doors so the dust does not blow out as much. It was run by two
companies, CHPL and NEM SITA. There is no way off this particular
hook for NEM SITA, that is a big company with huge resources.
They run Edmonton and they are mixing fly ash and bottom ash today
as we speak. They did this in Byker. The Environment Agency is
doing an inquiry on Byker now but they still have not released
the results or tracked down the missing ash.
Mr Brake
124. To EWA: you have said that 166 is a gross
exaggeration in terms of the number of incinerators that will
be needed. Can you just tell us what assumptions you have made
to arrive at a figure of 15 by 2010, for instance in terms of
the growth or fall in waste arisings? What assumptions have you
made about sorting the waste that is going into those plants?
What assumptions have you made about the overall level of recycling?
(Mr Chilton) Yes. In the projections we have assumed
three per cent growth, which is the historical level, and we have
taken the National Waste Strategy percentage requirements for
recycling and recovery and we have just used the recovery element.
So if recovery is 40 per cent and recycling is 35 per cent—those
are not the exact figures—then we take 5 per cent of the
total projected waste arisings using 3 per cent per annum growth
and using that as the quantity of waste going into waste to energy.
We are assuming that the recycling targets are fully met under
the National Waste Strategy.
125. Do you have any view as to why last week's
witnesses, who were in one case expert in this matter and in the
other involved in the waste industry, why they both thought 100
plants or thereabouts were going to be needed? Why are your figures
a factor of two different?
(Mr Chilton) Because we have just done the analysis
based on the National Waste Strategy. If waste arisings grew at
more than 3 per cent, yes, there would be more. If recycling failed
to hit its targets and we were told that we had to meet the landfill
diversion and there was no other means then, yes, there could
be more and our assumptions could be wrong. The assumptions that
we are using are proper reasonable assumptions that the recycling
targets will be met and we are not exceeding the overall recovery
targets in our analysis. It is based not just on an analysis of
the data but also our knowledge of how long it takes and how difficult
it is to actually permit these plants. 166 plants would be a complete
impossibility in my view. I spend time trying to permit these
things, I spend most of my time trying to do it, and it just could
not happen.
(Mr Hirons) On an average time of seven to ten years,
there is no way that that number of plants could be built.
Mr Donohoe
126. How can the public come round to the whole
question of the need for incinerators and the safety of these
same incinerators? We had an example in Scotland where they were
going to have one put into East Kilbride for burning tyres and
they were chased out of town. How are you going to put that message
over to the public that they are in actual fact going to be safe,
given some of what we have heard this morning?
(Mr Chilton) I think with different figures being
bandied about then people are always going to take due notice
of the most onerous figures that they hear. If someone tells you
that these plants are going to harm you, then I do not think there
is anything I can say to persuade you otherwise, that is just
the nature of man. It is difficult. One of the things that I think
is important is we now have some modern plants that are performing
well, in my view, and I do not count Byker amongst that which
is an old plant that should have been shut down when the rest
of the old plants were shut down.
(Mr Collins) Why was it not?
(Mr Chilton) I do not know, I am not responsible for
it. Modern plants work well.
(Mr Collins) SITA are members of your Association.
(Mr Chilton) They are not members of our Association.
The relatively small growth of another 12 or 15 by 2010, which
we can do—
127. Where are you going to place them?
(Mr Chilton) Sorry?
128. You are not going to get any in my constituency,
I can tell you.
(Mr Chilton) That is probably right, but we are hoping—
129. Tell me, who is going to be daft enough
to take them?
(Mr Chilton) We are talking about a very small number,
about half of which are already permitted. That is to get us to
2010. That is the truth of the matter. We are looking at about
another seven or eight permissions for plants to meet the 2010
target, two of which are in your constituency.
Mr Blunt: One of which is in my constituency,
one is next door.
Mr Donohoe: You must be daft then.
Chairman
130. I would just like to say to both the witnesses
and to Members that the next set of witnesses is supposed to be
on almost now, so very quickly the last few questions.
(Mr Chilton) Chairman, I am hoping that small number
of plants will build confidence with real data and evidence rather
than the different parties trying to make a verbal case.
Mr Donohoe
131. Are there any circumstances in which you
accept that there should be the construction of incinerators or
are you just opposed to them, Mr Collins?
(Mr Collins) Materials can be incinerated, I do not
have a problem with that in principle. However, mixed municipal
waste in major urban centres has lurched outside the bounds of
something that should be supported. Things do burn—some
things burn quite happily, some things burn a lot less happily,
but to take everything in society and put them in one place, all
materials together is not sensible. I believe Mr Chilton gave
evidence here a couple of years ago when he actually said "we
will not convince people living in the immediate neighbourhood
of the plant that this" incineration "is a good thing
and get them to vote democratically in favour of it". I thought
that was one of the best things I had heard in a long time.
132. Do you think this is like the poll tax
with flames? Do you think this is a new idea of how Government
can be driven out of office?
(Mr Collins) Just look at the polls from NOP on incineration
and recycling.
Chairman
133. What about things like gasification, pyrolysis
and anaerobic digestion? Are those ways that you would find alternatives
to?
(Mr Collins) They are more interesting. Whether the
pyrolysis gasification units can actually work on a significant
scale for a mixed input of feed I think is a very good question
and I do not think anyone really knows the answer. So far I think
the evidence is largely negative.
Chairman: I am sorry, gentlemen, but we will
have to leave it at that. Thank you very much, it has been a fairly
lively session and certainly there does not appear to be much
agreement at your end of the table. Thank you very much.
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