Cardiff Incinerator "would be waste guzzling monster"

Friends of the Earth Cymru has come out against plans to burn half a million tonnes of household waste to generate energy in south Wales.

PMG Estates and Viridor Waste Management plan to build an incinerator in Cardiff Bay. Rather than just burning the waste that is left over after recycling, with a potential capacity of 500,000 tonnes the incinerator could burn around three times as much rubbish as Cardiff sent to landfill in 2003/4 [1].

As recycling levels increase in Wales the incinerator is likely to end up burning waste from across south Wales, and may need to import waste from England. Friends of the Earth Cymru says that waste should be dealt with as close to where it was generated as possible.

Although the developers claim the plant would take "non-recyclable rubbish" Friends of the Earth Cymru says that the incinerator would inevitably burn plastics, wood and paper which could be recycled or composted.

Julian Rosser, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru commented,

"Incineration is not the best way of dealing with waste: it means burning paper and plastics that should be recycled. It's not a renewable way of generating energy because so much of the 'fuel' comes from plastics which are made from oil.

"The incinerator's demand for thousands of tonnes of waste would discourage Welsh councils from investing properly in recycling. A waste guzzling monster like this would tie us into burning lots of our rubbish for a generation. We need to be reducing the amount of waste we produce, and recycle and compost anything left."

Notes

[1] Between April 2004 and March 2005, 167,022 tonnes of waste were sent to landfill in Cardiff.