Archived press release
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Council Tax Will Soar if Councils Choose to Incinerate Waste
14 April 1997
Council tax payers will be hit hard in areas where councils are choosing to incinerate household waste, Friends of the Earth warned local authorities today (letter attached).Councils are being urged to increase recycling and composting rates to 80 per cent rather than get locked into 30 year contracts for incineration, the costs of which are set to soar in future years.
Incineration costs are set to increase due to:
. all the political parties pledging to shift tax from jobs onto pollution and waste
. a draft Directive from Europe which will mean wastes will need to be sorted before they can be burnt in incinerators
. increasing costs of disposing incineration ash to landfill
. Government subsidies for incinerators are likely to cease.
A recent European Commission report [see attached press briefing], leaked to Friends of the Earth, states that "the total net economic costs of recycling are significantly less than those of either landfill or incineration" and that by 2001 source separated recycling will be cheaper than landfill and incineration in all European Union member states. The report was commissioned to "give substantial input to the elaboration of a comprehensive [EU] strategy in the field of [household waste management]".
Mike Childs, Senior Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said;
" It is clear that if councils choose to incinerate household waste they will be committing both a big environmental and economic mistake. They should refuse the advances of the incineration industry and instead put in place comprehensive recycling programmes. If they choose incineration, council tax payers will be cursing them for the next thirty years."
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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Dec 2008
