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- A seasonal flurry of good news for the environment
- Anglesey tidal scheme welcomed by green campaigners
- Approval of major windfarm welcomed
- Assembly makes the right decision for A40
- Cautious welcome for Minister’s waste strategy for Wales
- Climate change and energy bills get royal assent
- Climate threat dwarfs environmental gains in 2008
- Coal must clean up its act
- Welsh Lib Dems urged to back lagoons ahead of the Barrage
- Energy route map moves in right direction
- Welsh political party leaders told to resist rush for coal
- Opencast protests ‘inevitable’
- UK Government failing Welsh households on fuel poverty
- Minister urged to act on "wasteful and damaging" power station proposal
- New figures show Wales is failing on climate challenge
- New motorway would be ‘unnecessary and unaffordable’
- New research shows we must act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- No need for nuclear
- Opencast mine buffer zone proposal welcomed
- Heads of the Valleys Low Carbon Zone is ‘win-win policy’
- Radical cuts needed to curb climate change
- Royal Welsh Show visitors support vision of Wales as a leader in green energy
- Scrapping of super-highway a welcomed step towards sustainable transport
- Severn Estuary feasibility study to include tidal lagoons
- Tesco backs high-speed power boat race through wildlife haven
- Wales in the dark about biofuels in petrol
- Wider range of options for harnessing Severn tidal power welcomed
- Wind power myths blown away
- Windfarm to produce a tenth of Wales’ electricity should go ahead
- World’s first climate change law is a victory for people power
Cautious welcome for Minister's waste strategy for Wales
21 Oct 2008
Ambitious proposals to reduce waste in Wales, announced by the Minster for the Environment today1, have been welcomed by Friends of the Earth Cymru.
But the environment group has stressed that incineration should not be part of any waste strategy.
Friends of the Earth Cymru director, Gordon James, said:
"We welcome the Minister's vision of a zero-waste society in which materials are recycled and re-used with virtual no production of waste.
"We're pleased that recycling and composting rates continue to rise and that quantities going to landfill are decreasing. The new recycling and composting targets of 52% by 2013 and 64% by 2020 are very welcome - though we believe these could be even higher.
"We are, though, disappointed that the door has still been left open to burning waste. Incineration must not be a part of our waste strategy.
"Incinerators undermine attempts to reduce and recycle by requiring a constant stream of waste as a source of fuel to keep them operating for up to 25 years. They generate more greenhouse gases than other waste options, produce fly ash that has to be buried in hazardous waste sites and create fewer jobs than recycling2.
"We also warn the Minister not to eliminate the possibility of any waste to landfill, as some environmentally-friendly technologies, such as Mechanical Biological Treatment, produce an inert waste suitable for landfill once recycling and composting have been maximised3."
NOTES
- The Welsh Assembly Government Minister for the Environment, Jane Davidson, announced today at the CYLCH conference at the Marriot Hotel, Cardiff that the recycling of municipal waste in Wales has risen, in the first quarter of this year, to 36% and that Welsh local authorities had reached their 2010 target for reducing the amount of waste going to landfill two years early.
- 'Up in Smoke: Why Friends of the Earth Opposes Incineration': www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/up_in_smoke.pdf
- Friends of the Earth paper on Mechanical Biological Treatment: www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/mchnical_biolo_treatmnt.pdf
For further information please contact Friends of the Earth Cymru on 029 2022 9577



