A FIRM that wants to build a controversial incinerator that would burn around 256,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste every year has lodged its planning application with Newport council.

Veolia Environmental Services wants to build a £200 million energy- from-waste plant on empty land at the Llanwern steelworks site.

It is the company’s proposal for Prosiect Gwyrdd – a consortium of five South Wales councils looking for a company to find an alternative to landfilling waste.

Newport Council now has 16 weeks to decide on the application, which will go before the planning committee, but Prosiect Gwyrdd won’t decide whether Veolia or an incinerator in Cardiff will get the 25-year contract worth £1.1 billion until next autumn.

If it gets planning permission and wins the contract Veolia could start building the incinerator in early 2013, with operations beginning in 2016.

The campaigning group opposing the incinerator says it is a decisive moment for them as they work to dissect Veolia’s application and identify areas of opposition, including threats to health.

“It’s important that the whole community now pulls together in opposing the application,” said Rob Hepworth, chairman of the Stop Newport Incinerator Campaign.

“If not we will be saddled with a dangerous incinerator for 25 years.”

However, documents from Veolia state that assessments show that potential health effects were “extremely small and would not be detectable in practice”.

The application requests permission for the incinerator, a new access road and infrastructure needed to deliver heat and power to Tata steelworks.

Documents state that waste will be burned at a minimum temperature of 850 degrees Centigrade, with the released heat generating electricity and providing heat to the steelworks, and with a total of 19.3 megawatts of electricity contributed to the National Grid.