Download Stroud District Green party's response to the County Council Questionnaire for Waste Core Strategy Issues and Options Paper:

Waste Submission 1

Please note that some of the questions have not been completed as we consider they have either been answered elsewhere in the document or are ambiguous in their nature. We hope that this is only the first step in the consultation process and that we will be able to have further input. Lastly the pdf document has lost some of the format from the County's website version which was in a format that made it difficult to reproduce easily.

See also news release regarding this report here. The brief report below about Compact Power Plant at Avonmouth is included to provide more information about pyrolosis: clearly there is more information needed before such technology can be endorsed. For example policies of reduse, reuse and recycle would need to be in place and this process would only be used for a very small amount of waste.

Photo above of Katrina: What a waste - Copyrighted photo reprinted here with permission of Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan. See more photos of Katrina.

COMPACT POWER PLANT AT AVONMOUTH

Please note that this is article is on Bristol Green Party web site for information only and does not necessarily mean that we endorse this technology.

Update 14 11 06

However, the waste pyrolosis plant has at last received funding approval from DEFRA under the £30m new Technologies Demonstrator Programme.  Biomass to energy company Compact Power is to receive £5m from DEFRA towards the £20m plant, designed to take domestic waste, which should now be operational by the third quarter of 2008.

Latest update 23 11 06

Bristol based AIM quoted energy from waste company is pleased to announce that an order has been received from QinetiQ for the design and supply of a waste processing plant to be installed in HMS Ocean the Royal Navy’s largest surface vessel. This order valued at £238,000 for Compact Power follows the successful construction and operation of a prototype for QinetiQ at their test facility at Haslar near Gosport.A small group of Bristol Green Party members visited the plant on 28 February 2006.  We were met at the gate by Richard Hogg who escorted us past the huge old incinerator which is being demolished through the power plant itself which consisted of out buildings the size of a couple of large barns and into a small building which houses the administrative offices.

We were quickly made aware that the plant we were in was not an incinerator but a new technology known as guess what, compact power.  The plant at Avonmouth currently handles clinical waste with the exception of radiated waste and this has to be sterilised on site before being processed, this stage would not be required for household waste.  The waste is heated to 1250C after pyrolisis, gasification and high temperature oxidation and this process destroys dioxins and noxious elements and leaves a fine, clean ash residue which can then be sent to landfill and represents about 5% of the 100% of waste that is treated. There is no contamination of ground water.  Incinerators have a reputation for driving down recycling because they are “greedy” and require large amounts of waste to keep going but due to the technology in the compact power plant the input rate can be controlled. The plant has an Integrated Pollution Prevention Control and carries and Environmental Agency Certificate.

The design of the plant can be scaled down and Compact Power are building a plant which can be installed on board a warship and whilst we do not advocate the use of military power this is an important development which will help to maintain a cleaner marine environment instead of dumping rubbish at sea.   Compact Power believe in the proximity principle for waste management and would like to see 3 or 4 plants built throughout Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire and BANES so that waste can be disposed of within 11 miles of its collection point rather than the 76 miles average now.  The plant was housed in what looked to me like a large, corrugated barn type building and the chimney was only 6feet about the roof as all the gases are destroyed in the process.  We were shown slides of the visual impact of proposed plants in the countryside and they were indistinguishable from farm buildings.

It is reckoned that Bristol could send about 34,000 tons of rubbish to the plant and they will send about 4,000 tons of that back for recycling before being processed.  Farm slurry can be treated with anaerobic digestion and in that state can go through the pyrolosis system used in compact power.

After the presentation we toured the plant and I was immediately struck by how small and very clean it appeared, the only malodorous section was the sterilisation unit and that was no worse than a stale milk type of smell.   The scientists working there are at the cutting edge of technology and I got the feeling that the management ethos  at the plant was one of caring for the environment.  Compact Power has planning permission to build “Avonmouth 2” and is waiting for a decision by Bristol City Council to go ahead with the construction.  There are no plans to build a similar plant anywhere else in the UK at the moment so this decision will be crucial.  (See above)

For more information you can go to the Compact Power Plant web site.

Christine Prior, Bristol Green party