Incinerator concerns

He says incineration won’t inhibit recycling. Common sense indicates otherwise. DEFRA Municipal Waste statistics in 2010 showed none of the top five UK incinerator authorities ranked in the top 100 recycling authorities. He claims incinerators will only burn non-recyclable waste. But Wales’s 70 per cent recycling targets are not due to be reached until 2025. Incinerators will burn recyclables at least until then and can, besides, burn recyclables in commercial and industrial waste. When Mr Lloyd-Davies says incineration has ‘an environmental benefit by moving away from landfill,’ is he implying only incinerators can divert waste from landfill? And on the subject of landfill, is he aware burning, as opposed to burying, non-recycled plastics produces a host of toxic substances? Modern incinerators recently breaching their emission limits include plants at Dundee, Hanford (Staffs), Bolton, Nottingham, Stoke, Sheffield, Grimsby, Coventry, Wolverhampton and Dudley, the latter two with more than 50 emission breaches each in 2006. In the USA, one of the incinerator companies shortlisted by Prosiect Gwyrdd, Covanta, was reported in 2009 to have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for emitting cancer-causing chemicals. They were fined again for breaches in 2010. With regard to UK breaches, they relate only to substances and particles capable of being measured and are measured. Fine and ultra-fine particulates are not efficiently captured by incinerator filters and difficult, if not impossible, to accurately detect and monitor. Rod Walters, Avenue Crescent, Abergavenny