Mountain Ash?

It's been a few weeks since I saw the architect's mock-up but I'm still rendered practically catatonic whenever I think about the spectacularly ludicrous plans announced recently for a Danish incinerator.

Allow me, if you will, to set the scene with a little context:

Just recently I met a representative of the waste industry for a bit of a chinwag.
It was a relatively informal affair: an opportunity to exchange views, test arguments and, you never know, see if there are areas of common ground.

I'd brought along one of our briefings which explains some of the reasons Friends of the Earth opposes incineration.

"This sort of thing we don't find very helpful" he said, pointing at what is admittedly a pretty grim greyscale sketch of an incinerator. "Many of today's incinerators are designed to look much more acceptable, to fit in with their communities."

He's right of course, many of today's designs make great attempt at looking pretty (or just plain odd). But perhaps the aesthetics of an incinerator aren't top of the list of most people's concerns? They want to know about costs, don't they? And whether there are better ways to deal with their waste; whether they're safe, clean, contributing to climate change, ...

Funnily enough, around the same time my bet for the all-time craziest design for an incinerator was announced. Copenhagen, the capital of "energy-from-waste", is set to replace a forty-year old burner with one of such eye-popping extravagance you'd have to wonder what fumes they've been breathing.

Meet the burning piste - an incinerator wrapped in ski slopes. As you ascend this Danish 'Mountain Ash', with your skis and poles tucked up into the chairlift, you'll be treated to the surreal sight of skiers swishing over a transparent ski slope with an incinerator looming beneath them.

But it doesn't stop there. Every time a tonne of CO₂ is released our eco-conscious alchemist-of-waste will blow a cute little smoke ring over the moguls as a friendly reminder of the impacts of consumption. These smoky little donuts will even be lit up by lasers at night so the lesson will keep on teaching.

Now I don't mean to mock the architects - they've been remarkably creative, hats off to them. But if you think my tone betrays an edge of, shall we say, irritation, then you're not wrong.

This the most spectacular example of greenwash I've ever seen. Denmark generates by far the most waste per head in Europe - 801kg to our 572kg - and recycles little more than our 40 per cent rate despite years more 'practice' at it. Incinerators are the most expensive way of dealing with waste, and they ain't gonna get any cheaper if you go dressing them up in artificial slalom runs.

The problem is, big waste companies have persuaded too many parts of government think that all you need to do is dress up an incinerator to look like something else and people will be fine with it. As if cosmetics is the only issue. As if there aren't better ways to deal with our waste.

The cheapest, most environmentally sound, jobs rich and economically beneficial way of dealing with our waste is to prevent what you can and reuse and recycle the rest. But making that happen requires commitment from Government to support what's best for people and planet, not just what's profitable for a few big waste companies.

I hope I'm proved wrong, but as ministers consider the final drafts of the Waste Review they'll publish in May I can't help worrying that it'll be a policy-light, unambitious load of puff.

But at least it's likely to have a pretty picture on the front.