Ridiculous waste (From The Oxford Times)
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Ridiculous waste
6:50am Thursday 4th February 2010 in
Sir – Pamela Vivian is exactly to the point in indicating that incineration of waste is a dead policy, especially given recently improved rates of recycling (Letters, January 28). I would add that incineration is a ridiculous waste of resources.
It is known that claims for energy efficiency from such processes are risible. Those of us who endured resource deprivations immediately post-Second World War know that re-using materials of all kinds makes thorough economic sense. What idiocy to burn them!
Fortunately some of Oxfordshire’s local district councils are taking the challenge seriously and demonstrating impressive recycling achievements.
I suspect that those members of Oxfordshire County Council cabinet who are still considering burning waste as an appropriate treatment of this problem are rather too young to know what they are talking about! They are of the ‘effluent’ and ‘built-in obsolescence’ generation who have been bamboozled by clever marketing campaigns aimed at creating desire for superfluous and over packaged products — never mind the consequences.
They are a lost generation when it comes to sustainability. Fortunately, younger generations, as well as the pensioners I allude to, are not so beguiled.
I suggest that those county councillors who still think waste incineration is a way forward check out the views of both their older and younger constituents. They may learn something profitable.
Dr P. Amos-Wilson, Sutton Courtenay
Comments(4)
Megs
says...
4:57pm Thu 4 Feb 10
Let us hope that it is now finally exposed for the danger has posed to the world and that Oxfordhsire decision makers see it for threat it is, as have their peers in other authorities.
mark.dot
says...
7:54pm Thu 4 Feb 10
Some Oxfordshire businesses, like Seacourt printers, are now virtually zero-waste. Dorchester on Thames is one of the Government's Towards Zero Waste Places.
Incineration is itself a waste, a waste of recyclable or compostable resources. A forward thinking County Council wouldn't be going for out-dated waste treatment technology that suited some European countries twenty years ago. They would be joining the public, businesses, District Councils and the Government in the drive towards zero waste.
Querying
says...
9:25pm Thu 4 Feb 10
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shlomo dowen says...
3:31pm Thu 4 Feb 10
As has been said before, incineration results in the production of dangerous ash. Until recently the proposers of such schemes could claim that a portion of this ash could be used in road building. But a quick look at http://ukwin.org.uk/
2010/01/29/iba-banne
d-from-use-in-highwa
ys-projects/ shows that the Highways Agency has banned the use of incinerator bottom ash (IBA) while an investigation is carried out into explosions caused by IBA!
Incinerators convert innocent resources, such as food waste, into ecotoxic and explosive material.
Much better to transform discarded food into compost and energy via anaerobic digestion (AD).
In short, there are better (sustainable) ways of managing waste / resources than incineration. The age of mass burn is over, and when it comes to the prudent management of discarded material, Oxfordshire needs to look to the future, not the past.
Thankfully, we can all look forward to a future UK without incineration!