What's the latest news?
The incinerator is now being constructed. Last year ESCC gave Veolia, who have a 25 year waste management contract with the council, planning permission approval to develop an 'Energy Recovery Facility' (they don't call it an incinerator!) at North Quay, but the local pressure group, DOVE, held up commencement of the works through various legal challenges, the last of which failed last November. However, DOVE continued to oppose the issue of a Pollution Prevention and Control Permit (PPE) by the Environment Agency, but this was finally issued on 13th March 2009.
Is the incinerator important?
It is crucial. Currently, most East Sussex waste still ends up in landfill, but there are only two sites left in East Sussex and these are to close shortly. They are Beddingham (Viridor), due to close this year, and Pebsham (BIFFA), mostly due to close this year, though landfilling of the northern infill will continue till 2013. Once these sites close, without the incinerator there would be no significant waste disposal facility in East Sussex. If the incinerator had been refused planning permission it is certain there would have been greater pressure to create a landfill site at Ashdown.
Technical Information: Extract from the ESCC Planning Committee notes
4.2 The proposed ERF will be a twin stream plant, with a theoretical maximum throughput of 242,000 tonnes per annum (tpa). It has been designed to operate at 85% of this capacity to allow for essential maintenance requirements, so the plant's actual operating capacity is estimated to be 210,000 tpa or 28 tonnes per hour (tph).
4.3 The ERF plant itself will operate continuously, except for maintenance or emergencies, but deliveries will only take place from 0700 - 1730 on Mondays to Fridays and 0800 - 1500 on Saturdays; occasional deliveries will take place outside these hours. Planned maintenance will take place twice annually, once for one week and once for two weeks, which would allow one stream to continue operations to treat directly delivered waste only.
4.4 With a throughput of 210,000 tonnes of waste treated annually, the process will be likely to generate 52,900 tpa of bottom ash from the combustion process, and 8,400 tpa of recovered ferrous metals. This represents 25% of the waste input by tonnage and 10% by volume. The applicant states that options for processing bottom ash for use as an aggregate are under consideration.
Also heat energy in the form of steam will be collected and used to generate 16.5 megawatts of electricity enough to provide for 25,000 homes.
Can it handle all our waste?
The maximum amount of waste the incinerator could handle is 245,000 tonnes per annum. East Sussex waste currently amounts to 400,000tpa, however it is estimated that with increased recycling, this might be reduced to 250,000tpa by 2012. So, yes, it just might, but the recycling target might be over optimistic. Secondly, there the matter of 'bottom ash' or 'fly ash' from the scrubbers, and the recovered metals. They will need to be found a home.
What is certain is that it couldn't handle London waste as well!
Under the South East Plan, East Sussex is due to take 1.6 million tonnes of London waste over the period till 2026. It is impossible that the incinerator could handle this as well as our own waste.
Is incineration a safe way of disposing of waste?
There is a lot of disagreement on this issue, but the main 'experts' say that modern technology makes incineration far safer than previously, with tight control emissions. According to the Environment Agency, the new permit (PPC) sets strict conditions governing the operation of the incinerator, measuring any pollution to ensure that public health and the environment are protected.
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