4th December 2007

Chris Harmer writes in response to a letter in The Citizen about County waste proposals

I agree with all of Cllr Shenoi’s points except perhaps for his emphasis.

The “easy option” is to feed our black bag waste to a massive and unsightly waste-to-energy incinerator which we would then have to feed for its contract period.

But its worth noting that St. Arvans in Monmouthshire, piloted as a “zero waste village”, is already RECYCLING 80% of its waste which is a far more efficient solution.

But if we really can achieve 80%, we still have to deal with the residual 20%.
Venk Shenoi is right to suggest anaerobic digestion and energy from waste. But what we need are a network of smaller facilities that are closer to the communities they serve such that we don’t have to hump the waste miles with big lorries, and the facilities fit the scale of the buildings on our existing industrial estates.

We could then match such a plant to an industrial use for its heat output which would in effect be a subsidy on the rates. These smaller, distributed facilities would be more flexible and as they are usually modular in construction we can introduce more with time or decommission them for use elsewhere to meet the uncertain, but hopefully reducing needs of the next few decades.

Cllr Chris Harmer, Green Party, Horsley.